


Primal

by femme4jack, fractalserpentine, HopeofDawn, Sakiku



Series: Domesticus [9]
Category: Transformers, Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Alien Mythology/Religion, Anal Sex, Disability, Fun with Fields, Human Biology, Interrogation, Moral Ambiguity, Multi, Pets, Plug and Play, Prostitution, Religion, Slave Trade, Souls, Surgery, Tentacles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-06
Updated: 2013-03-08
Packaged: 2017-11-28 10:48:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/673547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femme4jack/pseuds/femme4jack, https://archiveofourown.org/users/fractalserpentine/pseuds/fractalserpentine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeofDawn/pseuds/HopeofDawn, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sakiku/pseuds/Sakiku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Homo Sapiens domesticus: Primal</p><p>Like all class five organics, humans are at least minimally self-aware, but possess no recognizable spark-like energy.  In some of the species’ mythological traditions, humans hypothesize that they have a ‘soul’, an immortal but incorporeal essence.  Other human mythologies assign similar hypothetical energies to lesser organics, drones, and inanimate objects.  To date, no evidence supports these primitive theories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The rape/noncon archive warning is for the overall themes of this story-verse, which is neck deep in consent issues. We'll continue to use this archive warning on every installment due to the nature of the story-verse. There will be many references to those themes in this installment.

This chapter is T-rated for surgery and a whole lotta moral relativism which may not be suitable at any age.

========

 

 

Ratchet looked from the glowering Seeker to the anxious medical apprentice, and then finally at the frail, formerly bipedal organic mostly hidden in the Seeker's hands. 

Primus, had the entire world gone glitched? 

The animal was baring its dentae in a bizarre grimace, whilst waving one of the two, multi-digit prehensile appendages that was not impacted by its injury. It vocalized several short, melodic sounds. A threat display of some sort? 

"Well, are you going to let me examine it, or just stand there flaring your armor at me?" Ratchet demanded of the Seeker.

"The language protocols really would be helpful..." First Aid suggested again. 

"I do not need to incorporate an entire packet of organic bleating in order to conduct an examination. If you are not going to hand over the creature, then you can leave. I’m a busy mech and don’t have time for this." 

Thundercracker's dark snarl was interrupted by a priority ping from Ratchet's console.

"Give me a klik," he said, pivoting to face his desk. A quick scan of the priority code -- marked by the gleaming Tower glyph of Iacon -- gave him the origin of the message. Reaching over, he hardlined into the communications server, receiving the official communique and decrypting it.

Ignoring First Aid’s anxious hovering, Ratchet read the message. Then, cycling his optics, read it again.

"Hunh. What a fan-fragging-tastic coincidence," he muttered, turning again to face the motley assemblage in his office, considering all of them a little more carefully.

The Seeker's weaponry hummed, crackling ominously on standby, Thundercracker obviously fighting to keep his threat displays from turning into violent action. Seeker threat-assessment and reaction protocols were highly tuned and volatile: a necessity for a frameclass designed for aerial battles where decisions of life and death were made between one astrosecond and the next. It didn’t make them any less fragging annoying to deal with, however. The organic chirped something at Thundercracker, and the big Seeker looked down, wings relaxing by a fraction. Interesting. Ratchet didn’t think he’d ever seen a Seeker respond to a pet quite like that before. Still, Ratchet wasn’t going to question his good luck, especially if it meant he didn’t have to slap Thundercracker with a medical lockdown and kick him out of his medbay.

"So. That was a priority request from the consortium of city-states, all of whom have trading privileges on your organic’s homeworld. They’re requesting medical personnel.” He vented roughly, showing what he thought of the request. “Because Cybertron has so many to spare, of course."

"Why?" First Aid asked. Ratchet didn't need to do a scan to know that First Aid's processing modules were running hot as the apprentice tried to figure out how to be one of the medics sent. Which, considering how emotionally compromised he already was, would probably be just about the worst idea since the outlawing of Megatron by the Senate, back in the dark times of the Schism.

"That’s classified," Ratchet said shortly, trusting that First Aid knew better than to pry. The report indicated some sort of civil unrest -- native organics, aided by rogue Vosians, had been attacking organic and Cybertronian installations. According to the missive, the Lord High Protector was considering an additional request for military intervention on behalf of both the Cybertronian interests and those of the humans they were aiding. Iacon knew that the medical guild wouldn’t send medics into a warzone without some form of military protection, not at any price. Not if Ratchet had anything to say about it. Even the rawest novice medic, fresh from the Academe, was far too valuable--and vulnerable--to waste. But if Megatron approved the movement of troops.... 

Ratchet ran one hand over the crest of his helm briefly, his optics narrowing as he considered the human in front of him. "All right--go ahead and transmit the language pack. It seems I do have some questions to ask it after all." 

The file was a simple one, a million or so terms at most, many of them having to do with the organics’ biological processes. Useful, that. He recalibrated his vocalizer, checking for proper concordance with the range and tones required by the new language. 

The human interrupted the process. “Hi there,” it repeated. “Thundercracker says your designation is Ratchet -- it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Hrmp. Wish I could say the same.” Ratchet waved in the direction of the examination table. “All right--put it down over there, and I’ll get started.”

The Seeker hesitated, then obeyed, settling the human down onto the soft metalmesh surface in a sitting position. The human reached back, planting one hand to steady itself. “We typically prefer gendered pronouns,” the organic offered pleasantly. “Or our names. I’m Chip -- or ::Chip::, if you like.”

Ratchet heaved himself to his pedes. “I’m a medic, not a xenosociologist, creature. I only care about your functioning, since my trainee here--” he shot a narrow-focussed look at First Aid, and had the satisfaction of watching the younger medic duck his helm, “-saw fit to make it my business. But if you insist on chattering on, then you can make yourself useful while I examine you. Tell me about your planet. Are there any metallivores? Naturally-occurring acidic fungi, cybervirii, or other natural hazards?” He glanced to the Seeker. “You--remove those ridiculously flimsy organic coverings. I don’t want my scans contaminated by its surface adornments.” He reached over, triggering a class-one sterilization field-scan to identify and remove harmful surface organisms. “I suppose I should count myself lucky I don’t have to deal with any real organic armor,” he muttered, keeping a secondary optic on the results of the scan, just in case the creature was infested with something. 

The creature made an odd series of noises, almost like a tiny engine hiccupping. Ratchet glanced back over, wondering if the human had been startled by the noise of their discussion. His chemoreceptors weren’t picking up any of the usual fear-responses off its hide, however. Just the opposite, in fact; perfectly relaxed, the human was baring its dentae at him again as the hiccup-noises went away. 

“Figures. I go halfway across the universe to talk with an alien doctor, and the first thing he tells me to do is take off my clothes.” It snorted, an oddly mechlike sound. “Are you going to tell me to turn my head and cough next?” Despite its words, the human seemed to be inclined to be obedient, pulling its chassis-covering over its head as Ratchet watched. Divesting the rest of its coverings took little time, especially once Thundercracker moved to assist, talons working with surprising delicacy to remove pede- and leg-coverings. Without them, Ratchet noticed, the little human had no armor at all, its soft organic frame covered only by thin keratin and collagen hide. Like being completely covered in unshielded sensory arrays--no wonder the species was having difficulty surviving on its own planet. 

Ignoring the human’s bizarre pronouncements for the moment, Ratchet nodded in satisfaction at the creature’s unclad state. “That’s better.” 

“Chip’s spinal strut was fractured,” First Aid offered hesitantly. 

“Yes, I am well aware,” Ratchet said, leveling a look at the young medic. “I am also aware that you incorporated microspinarette tubules into your hands. You do know that they’ll do you no good, correct? Your current configuration would only pick up bacteria from the human’s own skin and introduce it into protected tissues, killing the creature both slowly and painfully.”

First Aid's armor visibly drooped, and he peered disconsolately at his four hands. Deceptively simple in appearance, shaped like standard manipulating limbs, a medic’s hands were perhaps the height of Cybertronian engineering and transformative capability. Installing unapproved modifications ... Ratchet was not happy with how the young medic had allowed his spark to overrule his cortex. He should have known better than to take such risks. Especially when his assumptions could so easily have proven fatally wrong for the organic he professed to care so much about.

Ratchet huffed a vent. “Go find this localized welder attachment. Incorporate it with your spinnerets; use this configuration for sterilization. Got the file? Then quit standing around! Go!” He waved the young medic towards his racks of spare medical equipment, then hooked his own fingers together and stretched, loosening the primary joints, checking for wear. Unlike newer medical builds, he had just two hands -- fancy-aft hardware, Ratchet had found, wasn’t nearly as important as the ability to fully and judiciously use what you had. After a quick series of checks on the transformation seams, he unfolded the minor joints and shuffled the device order.

The solid plating on both gauntlets, wrists, and every digit fractured, opening up into slivers and rods, transforming, realigning into a dizzying array of tools: fine sensors, articulators, chisels, occluder, nanite spray assemblies, tiny saws, drills, lancets, forceps, hooks, electron pushers, and a hundred different blades, all of them assembling and disassembling in a metal whirr. 

Satisfied that everything he might need was in good working order, Ratchet refolded the tools back into their resting states, queuing up the non-invasive diagnostic devices and manipulators he was likely to need. Given the human’s lack of any organic exoskeletal armor, it was unlikely he’d need to open the creature in order to properly scan the damage. Which, if Ratchet was being honest with himself, was somewhat of a relief. He’d never liked attempting to repair organics. Overriding their neurological processes or applying chemical-based sedatives in order to interrupt pain-responses was always a chancy business, and he’d never enjoyed the organic fluids, viscera, or the corresponding cleanup that such operations always entailed.

“Wow,” the human breathed, tiny optics watching avidly. “Like the mother of all Swiss Army knives.”

Ratchet did a lexicon check for the term, then scowled. “I am a medic, not a creator-mech. But even if I were, I would hardly create something so primitive and limited as one of your little hand-tools. Now. This--” Ratchet stabbed a re-transformed digit at the metalmesh, “--is a medical berth. Examinees lay down on it.” He idly counted down the small eternity until the human complied, arranging its limp legs, then laying back. There went another tenth of a klick that he’d never get back. Perhaps he could do some administrative work on tertiary threads. “Good. Now hold still. Does your planet have any predators that could threaten mecha? Any recorded outbreaks of cosmic rust or scraplet infestations?”

“Tell you what, Bones,” the human replied. “I’ll trade you a question for a question. I’ll start with your first one -- strictly speaking, *I’m* a metallivore.” It bared its dentae at Thundercracker, who seemed momentarily uneasy. “But if you mean a primary reducer, rather than an organism that just utilizes free ions and certain chelates, then yes, we have some.”

Thundercracker cycled his optics, his wings twitching. “The species lists indicated none.”

“A few bacteria do it. Desulfovivrio reduces sulphate. Leptospirillum ferrooxidans can oxidize ferrous or manganese ions, if they’re available,” Chip corrected. “And animals suffering from pica may occasionally ingest small inert metal objects.” It held up a hand, fingers spread, to demonstrate the size. 

“Hold still. Bacterial rate of action?” Ratchet snapped. Most organic single-celled organisms could not derive nourishment from a Cybertronian’s plating, but if these ones had an extremely aggressive growth pattern....

The human seemed to feel that fell within the purview of Ratchet’s first question. “To my knowledge, they can’t devour more than about three ::millimechanometers:: every twenty-six ::orn::, even in saltwater. Rarely a problem on land-based structures.” Chip eyed the large, studded plate -- Ratchet’s transformed palm -- which the medic passed slowly over its body. “What are you doing?”

"I doubt you would be able to understand," Ratchet said wryly, making a note in the appropriate file to provide any medics sent to the creature's planet with a few extra doses of plateguard. The bacteria were hardly a hazard, but it was always worth taking precautions on soupy, festering mudball worlds. 

Chip bared its dentae again. "Try me, doc." 

Ratchet snorted, but gamely picked through the language file. “I am applying short bursts of radio-frequency radiation to your mass. This generates a readout of your molecular quantum states, allowing me to construct a complete model of your internal structures.”

“Ah, nuclear magnetic resonance imaging.” The human’s optical ridges pinched together, an oddly worried gesture, and it lifted a hand to touch the metal atmospheric scrubber attached to its face.

“Don’t remove that,” Ratchet snapped. Primus, did the creature think that Ratchet was some kind of a half-coded medical drone? Or a newly-framed medic without the control to keep from magnetizing or heating certain metals? “And quit moving!”

“Oh. How do you supercool the magnets?”

Ratchet narrowed his focus on the human. “No slipping in extra questions. What about cybervirii?”

The human bared its dentae again, apparently a gesture of amusement. “None to my knowledge, though our computer systems did suffer from software viruses -- malicious code attaching to desired programs. Trojans, rootkits, read request intercepts, etcetera. Of course, at this point most of our networks are offline, except for the local ones. Plus the viruses probably weren’t compatible with your systems anyway. How is your NMR assembled?”

Ratchet had finished passing his hand over the organic’s body. It would take a few moments to properly compile and analyze the the wealth of data from his scans … he supposed it wouldn’t hurt anything to indulge Chip’s curiosity. Holding out one forefinger, Ratchet unfolded a general scanner stud about the size of the human’s fist, letting the fine internal substructure petal apart one layer at a time. “Spatial excitation generator, gradient coils, prepolarization modulator, gyromagnetic chipset...” he named all the components large enough for the human to spot, its wet little optics going wider and wider. “...resonance damper, shielding, magnet.”

“God. It’s smaller than a watch battery.” The human shook its head, looked up. “One of the first research NMRs was installed on our campus, over half a ::vorn:: ago. The magnet alone, without power or cooling, weighed as much as you and was so big, they had to leave it outside while they cut a hole in the physics building to lower it in. Maintenance discovered it in the middle of the parking lot in the morning, thought the students had put some kind of giant metal wheel there as a joke. They attached a backhoe to it, tried to drag it away -- ripped up forty feet of paving and took out a lamp post before the physicists got there. Installed it anyway -- worked like a charm.”

Ratchet laughed. “A good thing superconducting magnets are fragging near indestructible.” Reminded him not a little of the pranks which young medics at the academe were known to pull. “You were a student?”

Chip shook its fur-covered helm. “Instructor. Doctoral mathematics and cryptography.”

“Hn.” Ratchet tilted his helm a little, considering. “Prime roots of one thousand four hundred ninety five?”

“Five, thirteen, twenty-three,” the human replied immediately.

Clever, for an organic. Not that a grasp of basic mathematics meant much in the overall scheme of things. “Good to know you deserve your classification. Turn over onto your underchassis. Belly.” 

“Classification?” the human asked, setting about the lengthy process of obeying. Chip appeared to still have some control over its hips, but none at all in its... his legs or pedes. Ratchet supposed it wouldn't hurt to use the simple binary gendered personal pronoun the creature preferred when talking in its -- his -- language. Organic languages tended to assign a gender to everything, even non-living objects. Considering how much of an organic's coding was dominated by the drive to procreate, perhaps it made primitive sense. Cybertronian had pronouns for every frame class, function, and rank, not to mention the modifiers the indicated membership in various types of bonded and non-bonded cohorts. It was easy enough for Ratchet to apply a gender-modifier to the pronoun he would use for a class five pet belonging to an Alpha ranked Seeker. 

“I was referring to the crude classification system purporting to measure an organic species’ advancement, on a scale named after its proponents -- Torch and Redshift. Natural hazards on your planet?”

Chip drew his optic ridges together, but concentrated on arranging his frame to Ratchet’s specifications. “Lightning, cosmic rays, high winds, volcanic eruptions. Water-based precipitation, including hail and deep snow. Temperatures range between 184 and 329 degrees, on a scale where zero is absolute zero, and 373 is the boiling point of water at sea level pressure. Humans live only in the central and upper part of that range.”

“The language packet contains your measurement scales, as well as your base-ten numeral system,” Ratchet noted, though it was unexpectedly clever of the organic to include reference points. “How high are these winds?”

“About seventy miles an hour sustained, gusts in excess of two hundred fifty. Both are rare. What do you mean by ‘advancement’?”

“A combination of inborn intelligence and social technologies. You organics change so fast and are so common, we needed some kind of a system just to keep track. Humans rank roughly at level five.”

“So... there are a number of organic species?” Chip asked, tensing a little as Ratchet prodded him manually, metal fingertips cool on the bare skin of his back, bumping firmly over his ribcage and pressing lightly on either side of his spine. 

“Around a billion inhabited worlds in this galaxy,” Ratchet confirmed. “Easily a trillion-odd species. Or more. I don’t keep track.”

Chip sucked in a breath as Ratchet’s digits probed at the place the little creature’s spine had broken. Ratchet noted the reaction; not severe enough for true pain-response, but obviously the human still experienced some discomfort from the wound. “There are really billions of other sentient lifeforms?”

“Hardly sentient,” said Ratchet, though he lessened the pressure on the area. It probably would do no harm to apply a topical pain-blocker. Unfolding a spray nozzle, he applied a fine, cool mist over the creature’s back-surfaces, watching the fine-grained organic tension cables react, cilia prickling upwards.

“Most are class one or two, like your... microbes and plants,” First Aid told the human, emerging from the back room, rubbing his hands over his gauntlets and arms as he settled his plating down into place. “Social animals and large, highly networked organisms are often three or four. Your planet has many. Some fungi, for example.”

“Fungi.” Chip’s hands fisted, the human apparently disliking the thought that his species was classified a single step above fungi in complexity, intelligence, and social organization. Ratchet did admit that the Torch-Redshift scale had its limitations, but still. Several species of fungi had managed to populate multiple systems, and could survive long periods in space on various asteroids and comets. That certainly gave them a boost in their ranking. As a broad-spectrum classification, Torch-Redshift was accurate enough. “Is there such a thing as a class six organic?” Chip asked.

“Certainly. Eight or ten thousand in this galaxy.” Ratchet glanced over to where First Aid was awaiting his verdict, pinging the other medic his results and proposed treatment plan. “Are you ready to begin?”

“Now?” First Aid froze, processing the hefty file his mentor transmitted.

Ratchet was tempted to simply send them on their way. But then again, there was his concern over First Aid's stability. To see such a promising student become so obsessed... “Do you intend to waste my time with a second appointment?” Ratchet snapped. What purpose would delaying treatment serve, except to prolong the creature’s infirmity?

“I... no. Just... just a moment, please.” His hands still warm from incorporating new hardware, First Aid reached out to stroke the little human’s helm fur. “Ratchet believes there is a ninety-two percent chance we can repair your injury, Chip. Would you like to proceed?” 

Chip gave Thundercracker a concerned glance. "What does the procedure entail?" 

A clever creature indeed, Ratchet thought. Could the Seeker handle being present without tipping into violence -- that's what he was really asking. Could the human somehow sense the Seeker's wildly flaring fields? “Minimal fluids, some bone breakage,” shrugged Ratchet. The Seeker would most likely be fine, though it was certainly odd that the Vosian had allowed his guardian coding to imprint on an ephemeral animal in such a manner. 

The human, on the other servo, looked a little worried. First Aid stroked his fingertips over Chip's neckplates. "We made the right decision to immobilize your spine immediately after the injury, Chip, but your vertebrae have healed incorrectly. Ratchet plans to precisely refracture your spine using directed acoustic pulses. We will then make a series of micro-incisions that will allow us to reconstruct the pieces, and infuse them with a temporary microweb to support the bone while it regrows."

"What about the spinal cord itself?"

"Cell-mimicking nanites," Ratchet explained. "The cells in the injury region underwent apoptosis and need to be completely replaced. First Aid is fabricating the nanite solution now. You should have partial to complete nerve function restored within eight days. Reconditioning of the affected muscle masses may take a few orn, however." 

Chip's wet optics widened, the little creature looking up at First Aid in wonder. "You are fabricating nerve cell replacements? Just like that?"

"These nanites should be able to mimic any of your cells," First Aid corrected. As a trainee, First Aid had never produced this type of nanite before, but Ratchet’s scans and instructions were sufficient to guide him through the process. Ratchet had picked up more than a few tricks during his long tenure as a medic, both on and off-world, and the supervised repair of an organic should be well within First Aid’s ability. "They are based in part on the technologies that give us our transformative capabilities."

"Like a mechanical stem cell," Chip murmured. 

"An imprecise comparison, but it will do," Ratchet allowed. 

"Is there any chance my body will reject the replacements?" Chip asked.

"Minimal, but if your immune system does malfunction, the nanites can be replaced easily enough. Now do you wish to proceed or not? I have plenty of other tasks I could be accomplishing." Ratchet was, in fact, completing several, having just responded to a message from an eccentric creator-mech requesting more specialized code to use in the berthformer he was crafting.

Thundercracker stepped forward. "The repair sounds quite simple and low risk, Chip. I advise that you proceed."

"Alright, let's go for it," the human said brightly, barring its dentae yet again in what Ratchet assumed was an organic version of a full-frame smile. It was... rather endearing, frag it. 

Under the watchful gaze of the anxiously hovering Vosian, they began.

\----------

Thirty minutes. The entire procedure took just half an hour, with Chip awake and aware the entire time, First Aid bent over and focussed on the delicate work. Ratchet assisted and observed, testing First Aid’s understanding and making corrections where necessary... and somewhere along the line, found himself having a conversation with the organic. 

"How did an instructor of mathematics and cryptography end up as an indentured pleasure worker?" Ratchet asked as he continued to test the connections along Chip’s nerve pathways, making sure that none of them had been damaged as well. The transmissions bypassed the damaged portion of his spinal cord that First Aid was preparing to inject with the nanite solution. "Surely your world still had some use for those skills, even after an environmental and economic collapse."

Chip grimaced as another tingle of real rather than phantom sensation travelled his calf. "I had a place in one of the enclaves. I didn't come from money like most of the people there, but cryptography was useful. They needed to stay one step ahead of the other compounds, and the ruling council wanted to try to crack your language. Then I heard humans were going offworld, and I knew I had to try. If polishing metal all day won me a chance to see a different star system, to meet more advanced lifeforms, it seemed worth it. Wasn’t much of a choice, really: I could either play the slave for people who made it clear I was replaceable, or I could work for aliens who could actually teach me something worth knowing." 

"Hn," Ratchet grunted. "A seeker of knowledge. That explains the Vosians, I suppose." 

"We recall all too well our long history of treaties crafted to the advantage of both the Senate and the same Tower consortiums who now control Chip's world," Thundercracker rumbled, emerging from his quiet brooding. "Vos has the strength to redress those grievances. Considering our scientists discovered Earth in the first place, we will not stand for the deception and exploitation of one of its species by those whose legal claim we are challenging."

Ratchet arched an optical ridge. "My understanding is that the humans volunteer to be indentured." 

Chip nodded as First Aid pressed something that felt wet into the small cuts on his back. "To work polishing and detailing mechs, yes. I didn't really mind overloading the mechs who let us practice on them at the training facility, either. Usually I treated it like a medical procedure, especially after I got one of them to explain the purposes overloading served for your systems. Different cultures, different values, after all, and I always thought mine was too hung up about sharing pleasure. But sexual slavery? Refused food and water unless I did what I was told? Being bought, sold and traded -- used so hard I broke, and then was discarded? I never agreed to that." 

Chip squirmed, even as he marvelled at the tickling sensation from the arch of his right foot as Ratchet tested another nerve. The medic paused in his evaluation, studying him. "I would chastise you for failing to read the contract more carefully, but as you are a category five, our law requires Cybertronians to make certain you fully understand the implications of your agreements." 

Which was a weird way of putting it, Chip thought. Ratchet didn’t seem to have a problem with the idea of people as pets, as things to be owned, just with the way that end had been accomplished. Perhaps Cybertronians had no moral reservations about owning other sapient beings? Or.... "So, where on this scale does sentience come into play? Or does that vary?" Chip asked carefully.

"Sentience? Well, we know of a handful of technorganics who have a spark-equivalent. Some are functionally extinct -- like the Quintessons. The Torch-Redshift scale doesn’t really apply to them... but if it did, they might rank eight or nine."

Chip nodded, feeling cold as his suspicions were confirmed. "You don't consider me or my species sentient?"

Ratchet gusted a heavy sigh from his vents. “Do you have a spark? A core that can be moved from frame to frame and which encapsulates everything you are?”

“No.”

“Then there you have your answer.”

"But... that's so closed minded," Chip insisted earnestly. "You require that other beings have to be a form of life like your own to be sentient? People back home often refused to recognize sentience in other great apes, elephants, or dolphins simply to preserve their sense of importance or belief that they could do whatever they wished to other species. No wonder most of your kind think nothing of rape, or forcing humans to perform for food."

"I'm a medic, not a philosopher or a politician, Chip. But I do know that classifying your species as we do gives you certain protections you would not otherwise have if you were a higher level organic. Considering what your species has done to its world, had you been classified as true moral agents, the mecha who petitioned for intervention might have done so on behalf of other level four or five species on your planet, to protect them from you." And if the humans had threatened other planets... Megatron, frankly, seemed to enjoy reducing alien races to a pre-civilization technological base. 

"We define sentience differently than you do, Chip," First Aid said softly. "The word is a poor translation for the glyph to which Ratchet refers. Some mecha do question whether our definitions are appropriate ... but the classification system also offers you protections under the law because of your limitations and vulnerabilities." 

"So if we were... categorized higher we would have fewer rights?"

"You would be deemed to have greater moral agency and responsibility for actions that impinge on other species," Ratchet corrected. "If you had greater potential for self-determination and impact on the wider universe, you would be held to higher standards than your organic instincts and coding. ‘Freedom is the right of all sentient beings,’ but with that freedom comes the greatest responsibility. Prime insisted on such laws once Cybertron became mobile and the space bridge network was expanded. To protect others from ourselves, primarily."

"Well, doc, I hate to tell you, but if your laws are supposed to protect a lesser species from being taken advantage of by more dominant ones, you may need to take a closer look at them." The words were, perhaps, a little more bitter than Chip had intended. Ratchet didn’t seem to take offense, however, venting softly in the Cybertronian version of a snort. 

"Hn. I doubt you hate to tell me that at all, human." 

 

\------------

 

Raoul’s comm implant pinged him impatiently--again--and he rolled over and groaned. Burying his face in the luxurious pile of silken pillows, he pulled the comforter over his head. What the ever-slagging fuck? Tracks knew better than to wake him up early on the first day of his vacation. Or wake him up at all. They weren't scheduled to leave for Tarn and his long-promised sight-seeing trip until next orn, which meant he should have over a week of doing nothing and nobody at all (well, nobody but Tracks and maybe Blaster and his crew if they stopped by for some fun, but they weren't fucking clients, they were family). Honestly, Tracks was going to find himself doing a lot of fucking self-service if he thought he could wake Raoul up early on the first vacation he'd taken since they'd moved into the new shop. 

He ignored the comm when it pinged him again, wishing he could rip the thing out. Hard to do when the thing was an injection of nanites that had apparently migrated to whatever part of his brain dealt with verbal communication. Then he heard the door to his apartment sliding open, Tracks leaning down and peering in. 

"Is your comm malfunctioning?" Tracks asked, sounding haughty and exasperated. Then again, when didn't Tracks sound that way? Before Raoul could even think of an appropriate set of expletives, Tracks was reaching in and gathering him up, comforter, pillows and all. "Wake up, we have to get ready to leave in a quarter joor!"

"Anda que te coja un burro, Tracks. What part of 'two weeks of vacation twice a fucking year' did you forget?"

"Vacation? What the--never mind. We don’t have time for this! We have to get you ready. You have to get *me* ready. We've been summoned to Iacon, do you understand? Iacon, for an audience with the Lord Prime. And the Lord High Protector is in residence. Do you have any idea what this means, Raoul?" 

“Means you can bite my ass,” Raoul growled, hanging bonelessly over Tracks’s fingers, so that the mech had to pluck and tug at the comforter to unwind him, like a pig in a blanket. One of his nice pillows went spiraling down to the floor. “And get me new bedding, while you’re at it. Ain’t fucking easy to do the laundry here, yanno. Let one of the guys on duty wax your balls, or whatever.”

“My bearings are already in good order,” said Tracks insistently. “But my rims and solenoids -- and none of the others can detail sensor plating like you, anyway. The transport will be here in a quarter-joor, and Iacon--”

“Iacon? I thought we were goin’ to Tarn?” said Raoul, lazily letting his leg flop over the edge of Tracks’ hand. He scratched his stomach and yawned. Tracks had been promising to show him this rust sea thing for most of the past year. 

“You haven’t even been listening -- oh, Primus. Get your civilian and warframe tools together, both sets, the best we have. There isn’t time to order new ones. Bring enough clothing for an orn, whatever else you need that isn’t already in the carry-cube. I’ve got to assemble enough supplies and we have absolutely *nothing* suitable for something like this.”

“Wha--?” Raoul squinted up.

“You can give me a once-over on the transport. The trip will take a few joor. But then you’ll need to recharge; I’ve no idea how long we’ll be kept waiting, and you’ll have to be--”

“That’s what I was *trying* to do when someone decided to ring my comm off the fucking hook,” Raoul said, sitting up to give the mech a serious look. Like Tracks wasn’t already glossy enough, for chrissake--Roul could see his face in the big mech’s plating. Raoul had gotten pretty good at figuring out a mech’s expression, though, and Tracks seemed... more than a little worried. “Look, big guy. Just tell me -- what’s going on?”

"No time!" Tracks implored him as they crossed through the main hatchway into the shop. He set Raoul down at his workstation and turned to one of the big racks, adding supplies to the substantial set of transport cubes that were already assembled.

Raoul folded his arms and didn't move.

"Pack, Raoul. Primus, please just pack! A Primal summons is the most -- Raoul, this could destroy us or make us. I have no idea why we've been called. It could mean being appointed to the staff of the most powerful living being in the known universes. It could mean being imprisoned for breaking some law when I got you from Kalis, or for something we've done since, though I can't imagine anything we’ve done that’s worth a summons like this. And it could mean everything for you and your planet, do you understand? Everything." 

"Alright, alright," Raoul said, shrugging, even as his stomach twisted into knots. "I'm packing, cool your combustion, pendejo. You'll make yourself spring a fucking leak. And then guess who gets to clean between the cracks while you whine like the big sparkling you are."

"Thank you, Raoul," Tracks said, and Raoul thought he heard a tremble in the mech's voice. He'd seen Tracks stressed many times. But scared? 

"Whatever, I know. You love me and you're gonna have my babies."

Clutching a canister of touch-up nanites -- a brilliant shade of red that Raoul had used, like, twice in the last three years -- Tracks turned wide mechanical eyes on Raoul. “And for the love of Primus, no more jokes about implanting your organic spawn into people!”

 

\-------------

 

"You are troubled," Thundercracker's voice rumbled from behind him. Chip was hovering halfway up the vast window, staring out at the towers and pinnacles of Vos, thousands upon thousands of lights jeweling the massive, ancient upthrust that formed a ridge of sharp, deadly looking metal. 

"I should feel better about what happened," Chip said softly, curling and uncurling his toes. It had been several days since the surgery. He could already feel his ankles; at this rate, he’d be walking in a week. 

"Ratchet is one of the Prime’s own medics. He is an advisor to the Prime, and even at times to the Lord High Protector," Thundercracker admitted, careful not to add his personal opinion on what difference that would or would not make. 

"I just... he spoke about the number different organic species which are vastly more advanced, and still not considered sentient by you guys. Or all the others that have *not* completely messed up their planets...." Chip's voice trailed off, not even sure how to give words to the sensation that had engulfed him once the euphoria had worn off. 

"How is that relevant to the manner in which your species has been taken advantage of and enslaved? Other planets are not your concern," Thundercracker observed, his tone dispassionate. 

"It's relevant because... because in the big picture, we humans really are only a passingly interesting sex toy.”

“Hardly ‘passingly’,” Thundercracker interjected.

Chip shook his head. “We'll likely drive ourselves to extinction, and never explore or impact the wider universe. Our own planet will hardly notice our absence -- except in that something else can rise to take our place." Chip glanced to Thundercracker. In the dimness, the jet’s chassis was flecked with lights -- he looked like the skyline, like the stars the Seeker travelled so easily. His species, only four billion in number, largely controlled this galaxy and had begun to explore dozens of others. Chip’s species couldn’t even feed all its members. 

Thundercracker took a step forward, into the reflected light of Vos. He stood beside Chip's chair, intense crimson optics fixed upon the little human.

"Limitations are a furnace that will either smelt you into scrap, or hone your edges. It will be up to humans, both individually and as a species, to decide what your path will be -- that of complacency and unimportance, or of overcoming your limits.” He paused, letting Chip absorb that, then added, “You do not seem the type to mire yourself in irrelevance." 

Chip vented quietly. “It won’t be easy. We humans … we’re a pretty fractious species. And considering all the damage we’ve already done to our planet … fixing it will be an uphill battle.”

Thundercracker shrugged, a ripple of plating. “It always is.”


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter rated T for language and themes

========

The transport wasn’t one of the little puddle-jumpers Raoul had ridden in before. He still wasn’t sure if those were mechs or not -- Tracks had rented two of them to move the shop contents across the city to these larger facilities, a year ago. They’d seemed friendly enough, responding to Raoul’s queries, keeping their cabins pressurised, and overall had been pretty accommodating. Honestly, it was often pretty hard to tell which machines were actually alive and which were just ‘drones’. Whatever they’d been, the small flyers were roomier than riding in Tracks or Blaster, but not nearly as comfortable.

This shuttle, though, had both Tracks and Blaster beat, hands down. Raoul stretched himself out with a sigh on an inclined metalmesh surface, feeling the subtle give under him, the way the metal warmed to his skin. It was like a massage, almost, but more relaxing -- just the thing to take the sting out of sore muscles. The atmosphere was thick with oxygen, and easy to breathe. The front cabin had also reshaped itself around him, lifting and closing in to nearly human dimensions -- an unusual treat. Spaces meant for mecha were always so damned big. And when he’d asked about where they were, the shuttle had formed a window-screen thingie for him, which he could touch to magnify whatever he looked at. Even at this low altitude, they overtook smaller shuttles every few minutes, the lesser flyers unable to keep up. If this was a drone, it was definitely a nice one. 

In the main bay, Tracks clattered amongst the supplies. One distinctive clang made Raoul wince and crane his neck back. “You get into the graphite,” he called, “and I ain’t buffin' your shiny ass again today.”

Tracks grumbled something in a blat of Cybertronian, and Raoul rolled onto one shoulder to watch the passing scenery again. He didn’t think he’d ever get tired of the architecture on Cybertron, especially from above like this. Magnificently and impossibly curved like a vast twisting wave, a fanciful tower a mile tall passed by below, smaller spires crowded in its shadows. And it was the least of the wonders. Even the ‘small’ structures were splashed with colored lights and inlay, or supported huge gleaming domes covering organic or mineral gardens. In other places, enormous fields of bright pink energon crystals basked in the sunlight -- the upwellings would grow six inches a day until they were harvested, apparently, and were so thick that Raoul couldn’t see the metal ground beneath all the spreading mineral branches. Parts of the terrain reshaped themselves as he watched, honeycombed cliffs rising up in ponderous increments, blades big enough to house a skyscraper fanning slowly in the atmosphere. Raoul couldn’t tell if they’d been built to move like that, or even whether the structures were art or natural or functional. Roads like winding arteries undulated across the landscape. The metal metropolis covered the entire world in brilliantly teeming industry. It all seemed like magic, like the planet was alive. The view was mesmerising. 

“Hey Tracks,” Raoul called back, as a thought occurred to him. He’d been so busy racing around, and then attending to Tracks’s every last bit of plating, that he hadn’t gotten a chance to ask. “Who’s this Lord Prime guy, anyway?” 

The low thrum of the shuttle’s engines seemed to stutter for an instant. 

“*What?!*” Tracks blurted, leaving off whatever he’d been pawing through back there. “Primus, I -- are you serious? I’ve mentioned him to you no less than six times over the past eighty-four orn!”

“You mention lots of stuff, Tracks. You expect me to pay attention to everything? Look, I know you’re always Primus-this and Primus-that, but honestly, it’s not like you ever sat down and --”

“Not Primus, Prime!”

“What the fuck's the difference?” 

“Oh Primus,” Tracks groaned, burying his faceplates in his palm. He muttered a long string of Cybertronian.

“None of your lip,” said Raoul, thoroughly enjoying himself. They were passing over some kind of a broken mountain range now, riddled with the dark openings of caverns and pits. Long-limbed creatures jumped and ran in herds, sunlight flashing from their bright-plated backs. “If I’m gonna be meeting this hombre, you need to give me the lowdown.”

“Raoul.” Tracks put down the supplies he’d been stewing over and came close, setting his elbows on the floor of Raoul’s sweet little travel niche so they could talk face to face. “I need you to listen closely. You need to be on your absolute best behavior. You may get to see the Prime, but I don’t think you’ll be allowed to speak with him.”

Raoul arched an eyebrow. “So what, he’s a god or something?” Even that Kalis-dude spoke to them--if only to order them around--and he seemed pretty revered. Revered for being a huevón, probably. Maybe this Prime guy was really just a smoking hole in the ground or a rock or something. Baby Jesus knew that humans had worshipped stranger things.

“No.” Tracks pinched his optical ridge between two fingers. “Your language is so... no. Primus is God. The Prime--he’s the prime spark. There’s always a been a Prime--or several Primes--ever since the very beginning of history. The Primes are the very best of us, the highest, the most honored. And the Prime Ascendant... Optimus Prime saved us from starvation, pulled us back from the brink of civil war. He carries the Matrix; there are stories that he even went into the forbidden temples, he and his Lord High Protector, and awoke Primus Himself. He guided Cybertron out of the coldest depths of space, and sent explorers to every corner of the known universe. He is the guardian of the Allspark, the wellspring of all life. He is...” Tracks was obviously groping for the right human words, his optics flickering as he looked for a term that could even begin to encompass the Prime. “...a messiah. Our messiah.”

“Huh.” Raoul looked Tracks over. He never would have pegged the glossy blue mech as the religious sort, but Tracks seemed to be dead serious. Well, far be it from Raoul to disparage anybody’s religion. “So the Lord Prime, he’s kind of like Jesus, or Buddha, or something?”

Tracks paused, parsing through everything he knew about Raoul’s planet. He’d been collecting datafiles for the past eighty orn -- not a very long time, but Blaster forwarded anything he got his cilia on, and that certainly helped. “In a way, yes. He is the spiritual leader for all Cybertronians, the bearer of the Matrix of Leadership.”

"So more like the Pope," Raoul said with a definitive nod. "Except here everybody is Catholic." He stopped briefly. “Or do you also have Protestants? Holy rollers?” 

“Protests? Who would protest the Prime?” Tracks said blankly. “Maybe before, but … after the reconciliation? Especially in front of the Lord High Protector? Who’d be glitched enough to want to do that?” 

“So that would be a ‘no’, then,” Raoul observed dryly. “Ok, so this is some big ceremony thing, right? You manage to get an invite to polish up the Prime-Pope or something? I can see why you’re freakin’ out, hombre, but you gotta chill. All we gotta do is make him look pretty, and then we’re golden, right?”

“Maybe. But if all they want is a detailing, why my shop? I’m good, but I’m not THAT good.” Which, Raoul reflected, was probably the first time he’d ever heard anything even approaching modesty coming out of Tracks’ mouth. Or vocalizer, or something. “Not yet,” Tracks added.

Aaaand the moment was over. 

Tracks switched to comms, his voice resonating oddly inside Raoul’s head. // _I’ve got some connections, but nothing like this. Not outside of Kalis. And they specifically requested that I bring a human. Maybe they’ve heard how skilled humans are, but what if this is some kind of power play? If they find out how I got you, or what you and First Aid have been doing with the others--the Towers might have lodged a formal protest. Lord Megatron might think we’ve been undermining the treaty with Earth, and if he does, we are so, so slagged …. There aren’t any human words for how slagged we could be if we aren’t careful, Raoul._ //

Well, fabulous. // _If the Prime-Pope-something likes us, we ain’t getting slagged, though, right?_ // Raoul tried to think-speak silently. He still hadn’t gotten used to that surgery-nanite-processor-injection or whatever First Aid had done to give him the nifty communication thingy. And he’d already had it for a year. 

// _Our chances are significantly better than if he *dislikes* us, yes,_ // Tracks replied with a sniff. // _Just let me do the talking. Especially if Lord Megatron wishes to see us._ //

The Prime-Pope and that Protector dude sounded pretty stuck up, but Raoul dealt with stuck up mechs all the time. They couldn’t be that bad. But who the fuck was this Lord Megatron? And how was he supposed keep track of all these pendejos anyhow?

Raoul heaved a sigh, and gave up on the fiddly brain-comm thing. It worked damn fine as an alarm clock, but that was about the entire extent to which Raoul could get it to function without having to twist his brain into seriously weird shapes. Even if First Aid had assured him that the nanites were ‘optimally conformed to interface with his biological processors.’ Whatever that meant. At least it gave him a way to, literally, speak his mind to Tracks in front of clients, who may or may not have integrated the language pack and might or might not be a bit offended by his mouth. Actually, that might have been the reason First Aid got one of his 'friends' to make it for him in the first place. 

“Fine. So who the fuck's this Lord Megatron guy?”

Tracks gave a fine shiver. “The Slagmaker. He’s... you remember Legati Demolishor? Oh Primus -- the big orange one with the cannon and the treads, came in twelve orns ago? Right. Lord Megatron is a warframe, like Demolishor, and just as big. But he leads all of Cybertron’s armadas, all the ground forces, all the airframes. He’s prevailed in battles with odds slimmer than a lileth bird’s wing. He has put down more uprisings than anyone can count. No one crosses him, either politically or in combat. He is leashed only by the Prime.”

“Huh. Sounds like a real prince.” One thing was for sure -- this Lord Megadeath guy was to be avoided at all costs.

Tracks cast him a serious look, oblivious. “The Airlords of Vos are princes. Megatron is... is Megatron,” he said, fingers flexing, as if that would help him pluck out the right human words.

“Very helpful,” Raoul commented drily. “He as interested in going on and on about his awesome kills and plasma-splitting heat-ray gun as the Demolishor dude?”

Tracks froze and stared down at Raoul, scrambling to review his memory files. Had the organic just... “The Legati was speaking Cybertronian the entire time.”

Shrugging, Raoul folded his hands behind his head and leaned back, satisfied. “Got ‘Jaw to translate for me.” Not being good at using his brain implant didn’t mean that he *couldn’t*. And anyway, having Steeljaw talking into his head didn’t require much effort from Raoul. Tentacles had bugged Tracks’s workshop to hell and back -- in case of emergency, of course, -- so it wasn’t like ‘Jaw hadn’t been listening anyways.

“What!? Don’t tell me that no-good, interfering bundle of tentacles has been listening in on -- Raoul!”

“Hey, I gotta know what you putos say! Know when to duck, and all that shit. As soon as you’ve got a client, you’re all ‘of course, good sir, thank you, good sir, would good sir like anything else with that?’, and I don't know if he’s talking ‘bout the weather or how humans are mierdas de cochinillos and he’d rather squish me than let me at his plugs!”

Tracks reeled back. “If you had told me, I would have been easily capable of translating for you.”

Raoul rolled his eyes exasperatedly. Did that vain manicurist really need him to spell it out? // _He’s been makin’ sure our Schindler's list thingie stays under the radar, hombre. Makes sure there’s no corporate espionage, discourages other listeners, that kind of security crap. Comprende?_ //

The sudden whirr, like air conditioning being turned on, meant that Track’s emotions were running hot. Literally, as Raoul had learned.

// _That still doesn’t mean that --_ // Tracks did that strange ripple of armor plates that he always did when Raoul ran up against the end of his patience. // _You know what? We are going to talk about that later. When we are back at my --_ //

// _Our!_ //

// _\-- shop and don’t have an arrest warrant, a lawsuit, or other slag on our tailpipes._ //

\----

 

What a crappy place to get lost. Raoul checked down one giant-sized corridor, and then the other. Both were equally fancy, and equally empty.

He’d slept through the approach to Iacon, a travesty for which he could’ve just killed Tracks. So he’d only seen the front courtyard of this temple, or whatever it was, but that had been grand in a way that only obsessive-compulsive, immortal robots could envision, let alone build. Pretty freakin’ incredible, and Raoul didn’t think he’d ever see a construction so big or so densely detailed as this place. 

Or so kitschy, frankly. Why did everything have to be red, white, and blue? It looked like pictures he’d seen of some fancy-ass French buildings--the ones built by King Louie the whatever--crossed with a circus tent. Plus there were way too damn many of those very serious-looking honor guards, doors that wouldn’t open for him, and endless polished corridors. 

One of those corridors led back to where they’d left the tools and stuff they’d arrived with, not to mention the food, which Raoul definitely could use right about now. But which one? Would it kill them to put a few fucking maps in this place? And there was no one he was willing to ask, either. Tracks was probably still arguing with that butler-kinda-looking guy, the tall curvy one that looked pretty much like a chica but, according to Blaster, wasn’t. 

Apparently Blaster wasn't a chico, either. None of them were. Made sense. Chicas, chicos, who gave a shit? Chingados could call themselves whatever the fuck they wanted to. Wasn't like they had sex to make babies or anything. Though they sure as hell had sex pretty much all the time anyhow, whatever they liked to call it. Interfering, interfacing? Some mierda like that. Seemed like the national sport, sometimes. Of course, his perspective on the matter might be a bit jaded, considering he was a high end 'masseuse' in a high end 'massage parlor'.

Stomach growling, Raoul picked a random corridor and started down it, ignoring and apparently ignored by the honor guard. Glowing carvings on the walls caught his eyes, angles and curves, some of which were filled with some sort of colored, liquid light. They might have been pretty if his fucking vacation hadn't been interrupted to come and see them. "Interface, my ass. Don’t see nearly enough machine on machine action.” Raoul muttered under his breath, shooting a dark look at an unresponsive guard. “Just a bunch of bots looking to get 'inter' my ojete and fuck me until their wires start smoking." 

"That sounds like it could be potentially dangerous," a deeply sonorous voice said from about twenty feet ahead in the corridor where a mech was just rounding a curve. Camouflage colors, was Raoul’s first thought. This kitschy palace had to be the only fucking place in the universe where exquisitely detailed red and blue plating blended right into the scenery. Raoul looked up, and up, and up some more. Holy shit was that guy tall. Tentacles had *nothing* on him. Well, now he knew why they built their ceilings so damn high.

“Not my fault the cabrones don’t know to stop ‘fore they short their fucking circuits,” he responded on automatic and then froze.

Hijo de puta. This was the whole reason he had the comm-implant, ‘cause he just had to vent sometimes and it wasn’t any good for their business - and his health - to offend customers. The robots could be some pretty sensitive prima-donnas. The one in front of him sure was polished enough for that. Raoul could’ve used his shin plating as a fun-house mirror to shave himself. If, you know, he still had to shave. Whatever this guy was, he wasn’t a type that Raoul had ever seen before -- taller, broad-chested, though not as heavily built as Blaster. But not as slender or as curvy as the not-chica mechs, either, with longer limbs and a slightly more squared off helm. More … dignified, somehow, like he’d been built for pure grace. He didn’t *seem* all that scary, but still … 

“Hey. You ain't that Lord Megatron guy, are you?” Raoul asked warily.

Big-n’-shiny tilted his head in that subtle, quizzical way the robots had, optics focussing and refocusing. "I believe that is the first time anyone has ever asked me that question," he said.

"I'll take it that's a 'no' then," Raoul said, relieved. "They told me I needed to be careful about mouthing off in front of him." 

"Generally sound advice, though I would venture that he prefers a direct, honest statement, rather than more... 'decorative glyphs' that attempt to obfuscate the true nature of a matter."

"Oh fuck yeah, I totally get that. Maybe the hombre ain't so bad after all." 

"Indeed," the giant mech agreed solemnly, though Raoul would swear by Track's shiny aft that the tall mech was amused. 

"So, you know your way around this place, shiny? 'Cause I think I took a wrong turn in Albuquerque." 

"I can generally find my way, yes, though I do not know this 'Albuqueque'," the mech said, crossing the distance between them in a two steps and bending down. "What are you trying to find?"

"My stuff, I guess. Every one of these goddamn hallways looks as kitschy as the last one, and I'm so hungry I could eat a fucking horse."

"That, too, sounds like it could be dangerous," the mech said, and this time Raoul was certain he was amused. "I can take you to your supplies, if you will permit me," he added, offering his massive, blunt-fingered hand.

Raoul shrugged, and climbed on, giving a little shiver as he did. Damn, the mech had one hell of a field. The tingles pretty much went straight up his cock to his spine and neck, even through his clothes. Almost made up for the fact that the guy had probably just scanned him like a dog for his ID chip to see where he belonged.

"Just don't stand up too fast like some of those pendejos," he warned as he situated himself, sitting cross-legged in the center of the big mech’s palm. Jesus fuck, he was already hard. He was like Pavlov's fucking little dog, when it came to strong fields.

"Of course," the mech agreed, bringing his hand slowly to his chest and rising carefully to his feet. "Your supplies have been moved to the suite where you and Mechanic Tracks are scheduled to perform your detailing services. I will take you there."

“Que bueno,” Raoul gave the hand he was riding in a professional once-over, and couldn’t help but be impressed with what he saw. “Nice joints,” he commented, patting Big-n’-shiny’s fingers. The mech had really nice hardware, which was probably to be expected, given how fancy all the bots were in this palace. Raoul had handled enough mech-parts -- not just the jacks -- to know the difference between grades of hardware. 

Not, he supposed, that any mechs who paid for his services were poor by any means. But there were real differences in complexity and durability between drive latches, like most warframes used, and simple hinge-and-lock joints, like Blaster had, and strut-reinforced pivot ones like Tracks sported. Fancy Tower mechs had this kind: a powered hinge surrounded by fine piston devices each smaller than his little finger, covered in a nifty series of exquisitely interlocking bits of plating. Made for a particularly strong and dexterous grip, apparently, and the joints made no noise. The thinnest plates could get scuffed quite easily, but these ones were in perfect condition, the glittery-looking cerulean nanites glowing and pristine under a very nice clearcoat. Kinda like shellac, in a way. “Hey, is this Tellurian crystal coat?” he asked, rapping the joint with his knuckles. “Good stuff.” 

Tracks had never let him use the stuff, though he'd sneak some onto Steeljaw, once. The kitty-cat had looked damn fine when he was done, if he did say so himself The treatment had left almost imperceptible rough edges at the rim of each segment of Steeljaw’s armor, though -- running his fingers lightly around this guy’s larger wrist plate, Raoul could just feel that same faint, irregular texture. He’d buffed those edges down on Steeljaw with soapstone, one of the new imports from Earth; according to the lion, the traces of talc powder from the stone felt nice on protometal threads, too, which was an unexpected bonus. “Hey Shiny, how’d you learn so much English, anyway?”

“I do spend a certain amount of time in the archives,” said the tall mech easily, as Raoul inspected his hand. Even the undersides of his plates were perfectly finished. “There has been a great deal of recent interest in your species. For instance, I learned that humans typically possess designations.”

Which was possibly the most round-about, polite way Raoul had ever heard anyone ask his name. “Oh, yeah. Sorry. I’m Raoul.” He grinned. “You gotta name, too? Or a translation of one,” he amended. Mechs told him their names all the time, and fuck if he could tell one beep or squee from another. This mech didn’t have a trace of an accent, his vocalizer-thingie was so finely tuned. Even his voice sounded gracious and wise, somehow.

“Hmm.” Big-n’-shiny thought about that for a moment. “Your term is a fairly close translation of one of the glyphs in my designation. You may continue to call me ‘Shiny’, if you wish.”

Raoul arched a brow. “Shiny.” Well, what the fuck ever. Baby Jesus knew some mechs had way weirder names. “Alright, then. Fits you pretty well, come to think of it. So you’re a librarian?”

The robot studied him. “Not exactly. More of a... curator. I make sure everything stays safe and functioning.”

“Yeah,” agreed Raoul, twisting his neck to watch a piece of art in an alcove as they passed by. A waterfall? A living creature? It was made entirely out of falling glass beads, each one with a blossom of flame inside. The beads formed patterns, architectures, and Raoul couldn’t tell where they came from or where they went. “There’s got to be a lotta shit in a place like this to keep working. Like those -- whoa!”

Shiny had made a turn into yet another corridor, but that wasn’t what had caught Raoul’s attention. The kitsch-level here was the same as everywhere else; the ginormous fucking warframe striding towards them, however, was not.

Surrounded by polished metal and vivid color, the mech in front of them stood out like a switchblade in a field of flowers. His armor was silver, but without the polished-chrome sheen Raoul had come to expect from high-ranking mecha. Instead this mech’s armor was more muted, not quite the color of sanded steel, a pale, tarnished gray-white. Almost like bone, in a really creepy metal way. Whoever this guy was, he looked nothing like any other mecha Roul had ever seen. 

But whatever this guy lacked in bling, he completely made up for with firepower.

Not that he was actually waving any weapons around, but Raoul had spent too much time scrubbing dust and grease out of warframe armor seams to miss the subtle transformation points for blades and guns and other snazzy things. 

Unlike all the other guards... this big guy was headed straight for them, and he did not look happy. 

The guy stopped right in front of Shiny, glittering crimson eyes passing over Raoul, taking his measure and moving on. Raoul couldn’t tell much about the warframe’s field, but it seemed strong too, like an uneasy pressure against his skin. Holy fucking damn! Raoul had thought Shiny was tall, but Overkill here had at least another head on him. A Shiny-sized head, at that. 

From his vantage in Shiny’s palm, Raoul had a front-row seat, one that allowed him to stare at the new guy up-close and personal. If anything, the mech was even more intimidating from that perspective, with shoulder armor that swept up in wickedly jagged barbs and hands that ended in murderous talons. His force multiplier links were layered over *other* multiplier links in ways that Raoul had never even seen before, and Raoul would bet half his savings with Blaster that those radial grooves and odd contouring meant that the guy’s entire arm could transform into one mother-fucking huge gun. Overkill, much?

Despite the duller color, though, the overlapping plates there looked just as well-maintained as Shiny’s did. He didn’t lack nanites either, Raoul noticed -- indeed, his coat was perfectly healthy, even if the nanites were all that strange, bone gray. Overkill’s only adornments seemed to be the tiny engraved lines of glyphs upon the edges of his plating. They sparked silver in the light, so subtle and intricate that if the mech hadn’t been, like, five feet away and fifty times Raoul’s fucking size, he wouldn’t have noticed them at all. 

He had seen a whole lot of scary looking mechs. This one probably took the cake. 

He leaned back, tracing the course of a faded welding scar taller than he was, up to where the two big mechs were buzzing and squealing at each other. They didn’t do much facial expression, and he knew like twelve words of Cybertronian and only then if they were spoken slowly. But the set of the warframe’s jaw, and the occasional flash of jagged car-crushing teeth, looked pretty un-fucking-happy.

Shiny chirr-trilled something, and Overkill bit off a sharp series of fricatives and hisses. Whatever the argument was about, it seemed to have gotten the warframe pretty worked up; not that you could tell by looking at Shiny, who didn’t appear to be fazed by the bigger mech’s growling in the slightest. 

Raoul fidgeted for a bit, unsure if he should say anything. Then the warframe took a step forward, a taloned hand slicing sideways in a vehement gesture of negation, and Raoul jumped into the momentary pause in the argument. “Hey, uh--guys? Listen, I didn’t mean to get Shiny in trouble, if that’s what you’re mad about. He was just helpin’ me out.” Those scarlet optics turned on him, the ridges around them folding ominously downward as the warframe switched his attention to Raoul, who reflexively straightened, squaring his shoulders and lifting his chin. It didn’t matter how scary this fucker was. Considering most everything here could squash him like a bug, it wasn’t like the scary-factor wasn’t cranked up out the wazoo anyway. But Raoul wasn’t going spend the rest of his life cringing like a whipped dog.

The warframe eyed him for a moment, then glanced back over at Shiny, biting off a short, snapping-metal series of sounds. Shiny sighed, an oddly humanlike sound. 

“Do not worry, Raoul,” he said, blue optics tilting down to regard the small human in his palm. “I am simply being taken to task for … malingering in my duties. Or perhaps I should say--selectively avoiding certain parts of them?” He slanted an amused look at the waframe, who growled again. “I doubt, however, that the world will end if I help one small organic back to his desired location.” He stepped around the warframe with imperturbable dignity, heading down the hall again. Raoul craned his neck as best he could, looking around the clasp of Shiny’s careful fingers, waiting to see what the warframe would do. Overkill hesitated; then muttered something discordantly profane and fell into place at Shiny’s shoulder, following him down the hall like a particularly well-armed shadow.

“Sorry, man--like I said, I didn’t mean to get you in trouble,” Raoul said, looking up at his benefactor. 

“Oh, I would be in trouble regardless,” Shiny replied, apparently unconcerned by this fact. He tilted his head down at Raoul, shifting his faceplates in an uncanny approximation of a smile. “Though sometimes I find the trouble is worth it, if only for the opportunities it brings.”


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter rated T for language and themes

=======

Shiny eventually brought him to a large workspace, laid out almost exactly like one of the private detailing suites at Raoul and Tracks’ new shop. Except bigger, and more elaborate, of course. 

Aside from all the assorted carvings and fancy shit, there were really just three pieces of furniture. The first was a big desk-table with the two cube-like chairs, one on each side, like the table Tracks used to hash out what clients wanted, and do small stuff like manicures. Tracks’s desk was plain metal though, and this one seemed to be hewn of a single block of black, marble-like rock, polished to a mirror finish and traced with greyish-pink patterns. 

The second was a mech-sized shower-stall cubicle. Raoul didn’t go into the ones in the shop by himself because of the toxic solvents, and those stalls were a lot smaller. This one took up an alcove that stretched the length of one whole wall, and the separating screen was made entirely of clear crystal. The screen exploded into vibrant crimson and azure when Shiny stepped into the room, and then gradually settled into a lightly undulating purple. Tracks had once shown him a small sample of the stuff -- electrochromatic something. Looked like a fucking mood ring to Raoul. It changed color depending on the magnetic fields a mech normally radiated. 

The last and most important piece was an adjustable table, on which customers could recline for a full-body treatment. It kind of resembled a dentist’s chair, if dentist’s chairs were padded with silver and could resize themselves to pretty much anything. Tracks had one for each private room of the shop. Handy things, they could be programmed to recline or lay flat, to lower so much that Rewind and Eject could comfortably sit on them without looking like kids, or to fold out to support warframes. They could even open gaps for armor-spikes and tails, or contort to cradle wings and more unusual appendages like extra arms, sensory panels, even the occasional fin or tentacle. 

This one - this one looked as if it could do all that and much, much more. Not to mention it was large enough to be Shiny's king-size berth, if the platform on top flattened out. 

That was pretty much it for furniture though, and Raoul decided that without the clutter of things in Tracks’ workshop, it looked kinda empty. There were no buffer units, no semi-mobile tiny car wash thingies that had worked beautifully on Blaster’s hombres but had almost eaten ‘Jaw, no racks of paint nanites, and no spare hammer picks or wire combs or rotary pads. The room was... empty, because apparently all the professionals here carried their work stuff around on their bodies or in their magic voodoo no-space pockets. Or they built their bodies around their tools. Seriously hard-core dedication to a job.

Thankfully, Raoul could spot his own things in the far corner, where Shiny unloaded him. The mood ring wall developed some pretty funky red and yellow ripples when Overkill stepped into the room, but then evened out once again into a slightly more bluish purple.

“Hey, thanks for the lift, Shiny,” said Raoul, trotting over to his personal travel cube and keying open the top. It was only about four feet deep and wide, but that was plenty of room for a couple weeks worth of supplies and food. He popped a handful of tiny cube bits into his mouth, and grabbed a sippy-cube of water. Much better. Swallowing, he cast the huge, pale mech a sidelong glance -- the creepy warframe had taken up a position just inside the hatch, standing as eerily still as the rest of those honor guards. Raoul concentrated hard. // _Hey Tracks. I’m in the workspace. Do you know how to get here?_ //

// _What the -- Raoul! How did you..._ //

// _Some hombre gave me a lift. Look, whenever you’re finished with that fragging chica, grab that Prime dude and head on up._ //

// _I leave you for three joor, and you are already harassing palace personnel? I told you to be on your best behavior! If this reaches the Prime’s audials..._ // Even over the comm, Raoul could hear how Tracks was fretting. // _Please, Raoul, try not to get into any more trouble for *one* joor until our audience!_ //

Raoul snorted and ended the conversation. He was here, he was staying -- how much trouble could he possibly get into? But when Tracks was wound up like that, there was just no talking with him. Raoul wasn’t a kid, and he wasn't a fucking poodle either, for all that Tracks liked to boss him around like one.

He looked back to Shiny, who was still studying him with interest and showed no signs of leaving. He grinned. He absolutely didn’t mind the nice curator, even if he came in a package deal with Overkill looming in the background. “Tracks thinks he might be another couple’a hours. Want me to take care of that loose wrist cable for ya?” 

“Loose?” Shiny tilted his head -- that subtle, almost courtly gesture. 

“Yeah, noticed it while you were carrying me.” Raoul shrugged, fishing a few canisters and pouches out of his cube and clicking them onto his belt. He picked up a small device, shaped something like a rod with a thumb-swipe pad on the side. The device had a hundred different transformable tips, a ratch setting, an autoscrew option, and several more gimmicks that would make hard-core car mechanics weep manly tears of envy. Most of these things were bigger, but Tracks had adapted one for him, so that he could hold it. And, yanno, actually carry it. He gestured. “Might not bother you now, but it will in a week if you don’t take care of it. The floating wire coils prolly just need to be rewrapped. Ain’t nothing else to do till Tracks gets his aft up here. You got someplace you gotta be?”

“I do not. Should I sit?” Shiny said, interested, and Overkill shifted his weight, eyes spiralling narrow. 

Raoul narrowed his eyes too, fed up with the jarhead’s unreasonable distrust. “Look, I get it that you’re protective of Shiny and all, but this,” he waved the multi-tool at Overkill, “this is nothing but a juiced-up screwdriver. So calmate, hombre, I know what I’m doing!”

Behind Raoul, Shiny lifted a hand, and cast the big warframe a mildly reprimanding look. Raoul felt like he had missed something, some small aborted movement by the warframe, perhaps. Something too fast to follow. A fine tracing of black rippled momentarily over the sensor stone, perturbing the placid violet. Whatever it was, it made the hair at his nape stand on end. 

“Raoul, would you rather I sit or remain standing?” Shiny asked again, as polite as though nothing at all had happened.

Raoul stepped back, rubbing his neck. “I... yeah. Either way. I just need to have your wrist somewhere I can get to.”

“Very well.” The big mech moved to one of the cube-chair-things, and sat down, long limbs folding gracefully underneath him. He extended his arm and hand out on the manicure table, silver-plated palm up and wrist armor helpfully flared to expose the big joint. Raoul clambered up, using the mechkin-sized notches carved into one side. Putting Shiny’s arm between himself and Overkill -- for all the good that would do him -- Raoul crouched down to survey the area he was going to work on.

“Accept this retraction code, por favor?” he asked, touching the tip of the tool to a patch of silvery streaks and tracing a pattern on the little device’s input screen. Tracks had told him it was polite to ask a mech to accept the code he was apparently issuing via the tool. And with Overkill all tensed up, Raoul didn’t plan to be rude, if he could help it. 

Obligingly, the threads of silver flowed away, back to wherever they came from, abandoning the indicated segment of wrist cable. The part looked smaller without them, somehow more mundane, and Raoul reached inside the flared plates of armor to find the hidden clips. He drew the part out -- a springy length of something that looked like blue steel, various tensor components all tightly bound in specific places with carefully-wrapped wire. Raoul didn’t know a hundredth part of what all that stuff did, but some problems were pretty common, and easy to fix. He’d gotten the right cable; the wire was loose at one end. 

Gradually relaxing into the familiar work, Raoul laid the part carefully aside and reached up into the groove where the cable went, feeling delicately. Getting elbow-deep in a mech’s internals seemed pretty normal, these days. “Yeah,” he said, “you gotta get whoever does your surfaceparts to go easy on the grease. Otherwise it picks up dust, rubs stuff wrong.” He scooped out the excess -- excellent quality, but gritty now with flecks of metaldust. Raoul rubbed his hand clean on a scrap of microfiber, then swabbed out the groove with degreaser and reconditioned the channel with the proper coat of oil. 

He attended to the detached part next. Holding the part cradled in his lap so its nanite population wouldn’t get scuffed, he found the torsion control piece and twisted the wire through another revolution, then checked to make sure each coil bore strain equally. This was a trick he’d learned early -- Tracks’s hands were just too big to do this well. He gave the whole thing a quick coat of the extra-slick oil designed for this, especially over one seam that looked kinda dry, then rubbed it down with clean microfiber. He went over a couple other trouble spots with his fingertips, and tightened a tiny screw that seemed a tad too loose. Then he stood and replaced the part, making sure to get the orientation just right, so the latches clicked correctly. “Incorporate again?” he asked, touching his wrench-tool to the refitted cable. 

Those thin threads of silver came flowing back, sinking into tiny grooves and holes that Raoul could barely even see, until the cable was as much a part of the mech as Raoul’s tendons were a part of him. It was always nifty to see -- never got old. The whole process had taken ten minutes; Shiny really was in darned good shape. 

‘Course, that did leave him with, like, three quarters of an hour to kill. 

Raoul looked Shiny over with a critical eye. He wasn’t tired at all, especially after he’d slept on the flight, and it wasn’t like this place had a whole lot of other distractions. Just his tools and these guys. “Can’t remember if I packed any soapstone; it’d be nice to take those rough edges down on your crystal coat... huh, here it is. Mind if I try?” 

Shiny nodded graciously. “I have been told that the texture is not entirely pleasing,” he said, casting a wry glance at the surly warframe. “Would it make my plates more accessible for you if I move to Recline?" He gestured to the fancy table-dentist chair-thing in the center of the room.

Raoul shrugged. “If you want me to do more than your arms and maybe a bit of your chest, then yeah, reclined on that chair would be best. Can’t really reach anywhere else like this. But I don’t know the resizing commands, and you’d have to help me up ‘cause it ain’t got a little-guy climbing spot.”

Shiny got up and offered his hand to Raoul, who scrambled on. Shiny could work the chair as well as Tracks, ‘cause the thing shifted itself in its typical origami-folding way. It even unfurled a ledge where Raoul could walk all around the mech without fear of falling off. Shiny settled himself and set Raoul down on the walkway, beneath Overkill’s silent glare and some pretty angry-looking greenish ripples in the sensor stone.

Since Shiny didn’t say anything, Raoul decided to ignore Overkill, too.

He surveyed Shiny’s length, then picked the big plates around the hip to start with. Just like on Steeljaw, the line of roughness buffed down nicely under vigorous application of the soapstone, until the entire plate was silky smooth.

"So, you two boyfriends or something?" Raoul asked as he worked. Sure, everyone seemed to be boyfriends around here. Mechfriends? Or plug-n-players? Whatever. But there was something about these two. It was like he could practically *feel* the sizzle between them, down to his bones.

\------

Optimus, Bearer of the Matrix, Prime of all Cybertronians, studied the tiny organic as it directed its wet optics at him. Surprising, really. It knew so much about Cybertronian mechanics, but lacked the most basic information regarding culture. The human obviously did not know to whom it was talking; however it seemed to be observant enough to sense some part of Optimus’s connection to his Lord High Protector. “Why would you think that we share intimate connections?”

The organic twitched its shoulders in a display of frame language Optimus had not quite deciphered yet. “Dunno. You seem kinda close, the way he was obviously lookin’ for you. It’s kinda cool, how he’s been hovering over you like a vengeful gargoyle the entire time. In a totally macho ass-kicking way, of course,” it said with a nervous glance at Megatron. It finished buffing down the first piece of Optimus’s armor, giving the metal a final pass with stone and then with microfiber, and then started on a second plate. “Also, he’s got the same kinda armor you do, just a whole lot thicker. And jaggedey-er.”

Optimus regarded the little human, debating how much to say. “You are very perceptive. We were … created together.”

“Really?” The organic paused in his work, looking between Optimus and Megatron. “Hunh. So you’re like hermanos or something? Or is that not something you guys pay attention to like we do?”

“Hermanos?” Optimus considered the term, cross-checking it against the other Earth-languages he had learned for accuracy and cultural appropriateness. The term appeared to describe any male-gendered offspring of the same creator. Neither age nor function seemed to be a limiting factor; of course, given that each creator-pairing was capable of only a few reproductive cycles in their brief lifespans, there was probably no need to differentiate between generations of offspring. “Yes, on your world, we would indeed be ‘brothers’. ‘Twin brothers’ is even more accurate, I believe.” They had not developed from the same organic ovum, of course, nor implanted together within an organic incubation receptacle, but their twinned sparks had been created together, their protoforms twined as one before their emergence, and that term was the closest equivalent Optimus could find in his lexicon.

“Really?” The organic took a step back, looking both Optimus and Megatron over, as if error-checking its memory-files. “Hunh. Well, you guys aren’t the identical kind, that’s for sure. Let me guess--you got all the looks, and he got all the badassitude?”

// _It has that part right, at least,_ // Megatron observed sardonically.

// _Do not sell yourself short, my Lord Protector. I, for one, have no objection to your appearance,_ // Optimus replied, making no effort to disguise either his amusement or his appreciation. In truth, he never tired of looking at Megatron’s brutally elegant frame. Or of what those silvered talons could do when his Lord High Protector was… motivated.

“So, what’s his name?” the organic said, and Optimus returned his attention to the little organic.

// _Yes, *Shiny*, what is my name?_ //

Optimus deliberated for some time. // _I do not think it would be beneficial for further conversation to reveal your identity. It has been warned of your temper, and might engage defensive reactions upon learning your designation._ //

// _Do not turn to me for solace, Prime, if you become enmeshed in the coils of your own decep -- oh, fine. Do as you will._ //

“Since you have been already this astute with my own designation, what have you been calling him?”

The organic vented heavily, applying itself to another plate. Raoul’s use of imported stone as a detailing tool was strange indeed; Optimus had never heard of such a thing. And yet it was an unquestionably effective technique. Where had the human learned it? “None of the others’ve had this much trouble translating their names. I don’t want him to squish me if he doesn’t like his nickname.”

“I can assure you of my protection, if that will help?” Optimus offered gravely, but could not quite suppress his amusement. And the organic picked up on that, too.

Raoul gave him a doubtful look, glanced nervously at Megatron, then moistured its lips. “Overkill,” it finally said.

Optimus let his amusement ripple through his field, reflected across the sensorstone wall in bright, drifting flakes. // _You have to admit, oh revered Lord High Protector, that he is not far off the mark. It is better than the Q’ii’lee term for you._ //

// _I rather liked ‘God-entity Kh’r’ikk, the Shatterer, Destroyer of Worlds,’ thank you very much._ // Megatron left his place by the hatchway, circling to keep the human in view as the little creature methodically attended to Optimus’s plating. The human kept Megatron within the periphery of its visual field, turning its helm frequently for quick, wary glances at Optimus’s Protector.

// _At least this is shorter, my brother. And less laden with profanity than the other titles you tend to acquire._ // “Overkill is … quite descriptive,” Optimus said aloud in the human’s language, letting gentle humor warm his vocalizer. “And a very appropriate designation, I think.”

// _Oh yes, very amusing._ // Megatron’s comm was a sardonic growl. // _Another amusement: the Millhewvian ambassadorial delegation is attempting to contact their war vessels again. Seems their dispute arbiter walked out of the cease-fire meeting._ //

Optimus settled himself back against Recline’s extraordinarily comfortable surface, letting the human’s careful buffing soothe tension from every joint. When needed, the creature switched to a small chisel-pick to scrape away a smear of grease or accumulation of dust, employing extraordinary attention to detail. Especially for a creature without magnifying lenses. // _Just as well, then, that Cybertron’s atmosphere continues to prove difficult for their instruments to penetrate,_ // he said, dropping Soundwave a quick ping to ensure it remained so. 

Megatron shifted his shoulder armor a little. // _It would be far easier to destroy both sides’ fleets, and ensure they never cross our trading routes again._ //

// _Until they build more,_ // Optimus countered, shuttering his optics as the human pried a tiny chip from where it had worked itself into the base of his pede, and then lubricated the joint, manipulating the metal pieces carefully with its little fingers. He’d not even noticed the sliver, but now that it was gone, he could feel the nanite colony spreading happily back into the tiny scrape.

// _Let them. It might even give them something to unite against,_ // Megatron mused, flexing the fingers of his cannon arm.

It wouldn’t be the first time that Cybertron had deliberately imposed itself into a conflict, thus handing all alien sides the excuse they needed to make peace. // _They are not so far gone in hatred as that, I feel,_ // said Optimus, relaxing into the wash of warmth that cupped his spark, the gentle neutrality of Recline’s field, the vibrant, potent feel of his Protector’s. // _Besides, the delegation will change genders soon. This may render them more receptive to compromise._ //

Megatron was silent for a long moment. _//You cannot know that for certain,//_ he said.

 _//Hn.//_ Deciphering the Matrix’s prescience was never a certain art, but it was one that Optimus had become... accustomed to, if not as adept at as he might have liked. // _And yet it is true, all the same._ //

// _Organics._ // Megatron leveled a glower at the little creature attending to Optimus. 

// _Like them or dislike them, organics play a role in shaping civilization. Would we truly have expanded so widely, if there was nothing out there to find?_ //

// _Other races, I have found, are more trouble than they are worth._ //

// _They, too, are part of the tapestry of this universe._ //

Megatron snorted, making the little human look to him in worry. Optimus thought a moment, and then offered up an impression, a merest elemental echo. It was a shadow of sensation, more ancient than thought. 

It was the feeling of Being, of coiling tight into metal to look upon its creation, all brilliant clouds of dust and stars forming in the crucible of new-minted laws of physics. It searched, waited, until at long last it knew this: that it was alone. And its children would be alone. No others could rise up to share this, to experience, to learn, or to play. It mourned for an epoch. And quietly, it folded matter up again, reshuffled. And tried again.

Megatron was silent.

// _Or if you prefer, no few mecha earn their livings from the organics trades. And any new obsession which keeps the Towers occupied...._ // 

// _Keeps them out of my affairs._ // Megatron studied the little organic. It was undeniably disgusting. But perhaps it had some use, after all.

Optimus rumbled a little as the organic worked its fingers carefully under a plate, stroking along sensor pads, to check for hidden nicks and excessive grease. The soft little fingers felt as soothing as a sonic massage. "Raoul, I would be interested to know how you ended up on Cybertron," he said, as the human made a satisfied sound, and turned back to his plating. Its tiny, sensitive servos were perfect for the tender detail work of smoothing down edges.

The organic exhaled noisily and scrubbed a bit harder. "You want the real version or the really real one?"

Optimus tilted his head, parsing that phrase. “Would you tell us both? The... most basic one first, so that I can understand how your reality differs from it.”

The human scrunched its shoulder-joints in an odd up-and-down motion. “Not much of a story, but what the hell. It’s not like either of us are going anywhere, I suppose.” It worked quietly for a moment, its soft, dark features turned downwards. “Things were just ok when I was little. There was never enough money, no matter how hard we worked, and mama had to scrounge for a lot of things--clothes, medicine when we got sick, stuff like that. Still, there was enough to keep us all fed.”

It shifted, crouching down to reach the bottom edge of another plate. “But things kept getting worse as I got older. Jobs started disappearing, which meant money started disappearing. And everything got more expensive. Especially food. First we couldn’t afford to buy even a little bit of meat. Then we couldn’t buy eggs or milk. After that, there weren’t any vegetables, and soon a package of tortillas was going for a day’s pay in the stores. Assuming you had a day’s pay. And assuming they had the tortillas. Nothing was getting fixed, nobody was getting paid--everything just started falling apart.”

“What caused this disruption?” Optimus asked.

Again, Raoul made that odd up-and-down motion with its shoulders. A shrug, perhaps? It seemed roughly analogous to the Cybertronian gesture, though humans didn’t have any plating to ripple. “I dunno. We heard a lot about crop failures and earthquakes and shit. I know we had some really bad winters--maybe that caused it. The parish priest said it was a punishment from God for our sins; I think that’s bullshit, but what do I know? I’m a city kid--I don’t know shit about farming or governments. All I know is that the worse things got, the more desperate people got. Especially in the cities--the folks in charge still had electricity and food, but everyone else was fucked. All the boroughs, the blocks and other neighborhoods pretty much split up to look after their own. Neighbors had to watch out for each other, try and keep the gangs under control, or they’d lose what little they had, ‘cause there sure as shit weren’t any police around anymore -- not for us, anyway. Some folks left, headed out to look for work or food or both. Things were bad. All of us did whatever we could, which wasn’t much, but--you do what you have to do to survive, you know?

“Then, just when things were about to really go down the drain, the first aliens landed. I heard that they offered to trade all sorts of tech and things for waxes, fabrics, organic things that you guys don’t have. They even started up businesses, gave a lot of people jobs--good jobs, ones that paid real creds, like we hadn’t seen in years, at plantations and factories and such.”

// _The thing I wish to know, Prime, is how a young airlord of Vos came to lead a rebellion against his own race. Ask it that._ //

// _Patience, Megatron. Let it narrate at its own pace. Moonracer will keep its owner busy for another half joor. That should be enough time to answer all your questions; the organic is very free with information._ //

“The ones that paid the most were the ones where people would work directly with the mechs. Polish, thorough detailing, scrub in those small spots where you just can’t reach, fix little things like I did with your wrist cable. I joined when I was nineteen, mechs took care of me, food, housing, let me send my all my wages to mama. Thought it was great when I got the news that they wanted me in the off-planet program. Meant double the pay -- not many who get the option say no, even after the hair-removing and food cube stuff. So that’s the way we got onto Cybertron, hired as skilled workers to take care of mechs.”

“And the technologies promised as trade -- these also accrue to the members of your family?”

“Tech?” Raoul snorted. “Nah. Even from the beginning, the enclaves kept that for themselves. Enclaves pay the families in credits they can spend at the commissary. Tracks is helpin’ me save up, though -- bought a whole cube of solar panels just last week. Twelve panels! When I get home, Mama and the kids, they gonna be richer than anybody’s ever dreamed.” The human’s faceplates folded down, oddly worried-looking, clearly rethinking something it had said.

“So your service is agreeable?”

Raoul snorted. “With Tracks it is. He's paying me, right? I have a say in the business. Those Tower putos--” Raoul scrubbed vigorously, talcum dust drifting down over Optimus’s protometal threads. 

"So, was that the real version, or the 'really real' one?" Optimus asked.

Raoul grimaced. “The next part gets really real. Dunno that you wanna hear that stuff.” The human cast Megatron a covert glance. 

“I assure you, neither he nor I will harm you for speaking the truth,” Optimus said, guessing at the source of the little creature’s trepidation. “Even if that truth is unpleasant,” he added reassuringly. 

“Fine. You want the truth? Truth is, in the beginning, it wasn’t bad. Kinda weird, especially once the mechs figured out how much they liked blowjobs as well as handjobs, but hey. It felt good, paid even better, and everyone was happy, right? And it wasn’t nothing we had to do if we didn’t want to. Some of the others who didn’t like it as much, who decided they were too macho to be doin’ that shit, they left--but the rest of us stayed. It was no big deal, you know? Like giving a friend a really good rubdown.”

The human’s strokes had slowed as he recounted this part of the story, Optimus noticed. His helm had lowered, hiding those mobile faceplates, as if he were trying to convince himself as well as Optimus of what he was saying.

“So yeah. They asked us if we wanted to sign up to go to Cybertron, get all sorts of extra credits for doing the same thing, me n’ the other guys said yes. Wasn’t like there was anything left on Earth that offered better, right?” The human stopped his work completely, straightening up to stare challengingly up at Optimus, his fingers curled into tiny fists at his sides. 

“What the fuckers didn’t bother tellin’ us was that we weren’t gonna be workers, we were fucking merchandise. Literally. They stuffed these goddamn enormous devices up our asses, tagged us and then stuffed us into little crates for those Tower cabrones to play with, or to sell off to the highest bidder. And let me tell you something--*that* weren’t in no fucking contract I ever signed. You think any of us would have wanted to come here if we knew we’d be treated like meat? Like slagging sex toys? You wanna know how many of the guys I came here with are still alive? Who still have their balls, who haven’t had their bones broken, or--or their insides torn up?” 

Raoul was venting rapidly, Optimus noted with some alarm. Checking the human’s metabolic readings against the baselines for the species, however, seemed to indicate only emotional distress, not illness. The human shook its head, exvented hard through its atmospheric scrubber, and then started polishing again. When it spoke its voice was quiet.

"And if they didn't tell us that, how do I even know mama and the girls and my tias and primos are even gettin' the credits they're supposed to? Especially after that Tower fucker decided to quit handin’ over food or water unless I just took it like a good little fuck-monkey. They do shit like that, and I'm supposed to trust that my family's getting taken care of?” The little human finished off the plate, and seemed to be regarding the reflections in the chromed surface for a moment. Then it moved to the next, rubbing the stone over the join between two thoracic plates as if exorcising the demons of its past. “But Tracks is payin' me, and I'm savin' up. Gonna go back home soon as I have the credits. Unless we're in trouble for it all and this Prime-pope cabrón is gonna lock us up or something for goin' into business together." Raoul looked up suddenly. "Mierda, shouldn't have said that last part. Sorry. Me and my fucking mouth. Hope I don't get you into trouble."

Megatron shifted minutely, the tiniest realignment of weight. The movement was too small for the human to detect, but it spoke volumes about his brother’s aggravation. // _If the Towers skirt the terms of their contracts, an Air Lord might be roused against the consortium’s presence there,_ // Megatron observed, his distaste plain. He had little patience for how often the Towers followed the letter of the Prime’s law, only to violate the spirit. Truth be told, Optimus found himself … impatient with it as well. It was one thing to seize an advantage in trade. Cybertronians were both aggressive and adaptable, and these traits often served them well. But to do so at the expense of a fragile, ephemeral organic race: that was not something Optimus could condone.

“Do not worry,” Optimus hastened to reassure Raoul, even as he sent a glyph of _acknowledgement/agreement_ to Megatron. “Your words will be kept in confidence, until such time as you wish otherwise. Your honesty deserves no less.” _//I confess, my brother, that I am impressed by Raoul’s words. To speak truth to creatures who have treated it so ill, regardless of the consequences, takes an uncommon kind of courage.//_

\---

Busy with the last couple of plates of Shiny’s shoulder, Raoul almost missed the quiet wooshing of the door hatch as it opened. But since he had still been keeping half an eye on Overkill, the shift of the warframe’s attention alerted him. Subtle humming all along the metal-bone plating spoke of charged capacitors, a sign of a mech ready for anything. Violence in most cases.

Raoul turned, only to see Tracks freeze right in the doorway, optics as round as dinnerplates. 

“Oh shit.” ¡A la chingada! Was the joor over already? Raoul probably wasn’t supposed to have invited Shiny and Overkill over, even if they had more or less invited themselves. But the Prime-pope probably wasn’t going to be very happy about some librarian guy and his brother parking their big frames where he was supposed to be detailed. Mierda. Not good. Very, very not good. He patted Shiny’s gleaming plating. “Hey, sorry to kick you out, guys, but--”

Tracks abruptly folded himself in half, so deep was he bowing. He started bleeping something, and Shiny propped himself up on one elbow and bleeped something back. Before Raoul could make sense of Tracks’ strange behavior, the mechanic’s comm voice practically exploded in his brain.

// _Primus below! Raoul, why didn’t you tell me that Prime and the Lord High Protector were already here? You should have commed me immediately!_ //

What?

// _Also, what in all the universes are you doing! Why are you bothering the Prime!?_ //

Raoul looked down to where he was still pressing the soap stone against the edge of one of Shiny’s armor plates. ¡Pinche puto pendejo baboso! *This* was the head honcho of all head honchos of the galaxy? Or universe, or whatever? “Hey look, nobody ever told me what he looks like! And it’s not like I let that Megatron guy in or anything, so we’re fine, right?”

¡Puto madre! Did he just say that out loud?

Tracks’s kneeplates clanked as they hit the ground, and the mood-sensing wall thing rippled to a weird, frazzled gray color. // _Raoul. The Lord High Protector... *is* Lord Megatron._ //

Raoul blinked. He checked Overkill, who instead of looking at Tracks, was regarding Raoul intently. There was even a slight smirk on the warlord’s mouth. The Lord High-Protector, if Raoul wasn’t completely mistaken, military muscle to Shiny’s political power. And the smug bastard was just waiting for Raoul to fold over, too, and join Tracks in his kowtowing.

Very funny.

Raoul grit his teeth and forced a smile as fake as his abuela’s dentures when he looked back at Red’n’Blue. Prime. Whatever. “Alright, Shiny, since you were so curious ‘bout just why mechs find humans so fascinating -- want me to do your plug, too?”

Tracks’ engine sputtered and coughed, and then died a gurgling death.

Well, now Raoul knew what a robot-aneurysm sounded like. Tough shit. If the Prime-pope didn’t want to be called by that name, he fucking shouldn’t have given it to him. Served the guy right for not being up-front with his royal-religious-ness.

He wondered if he’d leave a head shorter if he offered the same service to Overkill.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The... erm... climax of this installment of Homo sapiens domesticus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains a whole truckload of explicit, enthusiastically consensual xeno smut. Tentacles, anal, pnp, fields. Crude language.

There was more bleeping and buzzing going around, and Raoul was really starting to miss Jaw’s translations. Even if they always lagged behind what was actually being said ‘cause apparently mechs were absolutely anal about details. According to ‘Jaw, they couldn’t just say “You look good,” like any normal guy - they had to include half a bazillion descriptions of just what kind of good, what kind of look, and the ‘you’ part was where things got really iffy. Raoul hadn’t really understood Steeljaw’s explanations, but the gist of it was that the proper modifiers and suffixes could make it anything from ‘thou most exalted holiness’ to ‘you stripped-circuit spawn of a malfunctioning printer’. And choosing the wrong glyphs was a minor catastrophe.

Huh. Raoul quickly checked the moodring wall. At least it had returned to a turbulent blue and red instead of those flashes of black and acid green he had seen when Overkill got mad. So, everyone was good with Shiny being called Shiny, except maybe for Tracks. He relaxed a bit and waited out whatever conclusion they came to.

After a moment, Shiny gestured Tracks forward, and he rose and approached to kneel beside the worktable thing, Overkill watching the mechanic closely all the while. Tracks's plating was shaking finely, just a very slight tremble. Now that Tracks was this close, Raoul could feel his unease -- though the wall hardly reflected it. Why? Maybe the fields of the Prime and Protector covered his field up, somehow? 

The bleeping and squee-ing concluded. “Raoul,” Tracks said, a little static at the edges of his voice. “The Prime lacks that particular hardware. However, if you will allow it, I will interface with you, while he...” the mechanic paused, like he sometimes did when searching for the closest word he could find in human languages. “...while he... *watches.*”

“Watches?” said Raoul, brow arched. He looked back at Shiny. The tall guy probably shouldn’t have looked so damn... elegant like this, reclined while Tracks practically worshipped by his side. But he did. Reminded Raoul of those little statues from chinatown, something about the buddha. Or one of those Indian deities, or whatever. “Sure. Whatever floats yer boat, I mean.” Didn’t have interface hardware? Seriously weird, given how often the mechs got it on. Maybe a Prime really was like a pope, and was not allowed to get it on, which was kinda sad....

And then Shiny unlimbered a prehensile datacable.

“Hey! You’ve got tentacles, too?” Raoul asked curiously. At least, Raoul thought it was a tentacle. It was thinner than a carrier’s primary, smooth and not heavily armored, a lot like Blaster’s secondaries. But it had no segments, no clear way it folded up into the housing that ran the length of Shiny’s spine. The tip didn’t have any multitools or claspers, either. The whole thing looked like liquid silver, really, like protometal. Which was weird, because mechs had armor for a reason. Putting that mystery aside, Raoul studied the Prime’s chest. “But you don’t have any little guys like Blaster does, do you?”

Shiny regarded him for a moment. “No, I am not a Chronicler. However, my cables do serve a... similar function.”

Ah, so it was *that* kind of watching. Tentacles sure made frequent use of his data transfer cables for that purpose, if what regularly happened between Blaster and Tracks was any indication.

Tracks exvented, shuddering, and a small plate in the middle of his chest folded aside. Not one of the ones that concealed interface hardware. What the-- 

For a brief second Raoul got to see what was behind, and it looked like a port, spiraling open, eager, almost all protometal. Clearly it was meant for connectors of the kind Shiny was using, because there was no way Tracks would try putting a plug or one of Tentacle’s cables in there -- mechs didn’t like anything to scrape delicate, protometal-dense innermost parts. Still, it looked like a -- an interface socket, all the same. 

But as the Prime brought the tip of his tentacle close, the insertion sure didn’t look like any computer-connecting ritual Raoul had seen before. The way the cable slowly pressed itself into the port looked obscene, first tasting around the rim, then pushing in only to draw back a bit and then push further. And Tracks... Tracks reacted, heightening the impression of mech-fucking. He was shivering, arching a little, obviously trying to press into the tentacle, but holding himself back so much that his gyros were starting to whine from the stress. 

More and more of the tentacle sank in. The socket couldn’t be that deep, could it?

An audible *snickt* of calipers clamping home, and then.... Raoul’s back suddenly tingled with warmth as an invisible, half-tangible wave went straight to his already-aching cock -- Shiny’s field, no longer politely restrained. The whole room seemed to ripple, like a heat mirage. Halos blossomed around everything in a room-sized corona of St. Elmo’s fire, and there was a high ringing in Raoul’s ears, just past the range he could hear. Knees suddenly weak, Raoul reached for something to steady himself... and his hand met the Prime’s chestplates. The jolt went right through him.

It felt... like a live wire, or drugs, like he could fly if only he tried. But no drugs made his very bones hum, as if filled with a resident kind of... exultance, and nirvana. 

And sex. There was that, too. All this shit with the fields was threatening to turn his balls blue.

And Tracks... Tracks threw back his head, arms shaking, fingers gripping at the edge of the table-chair, and made a sound that Raoul had never heard before, not from any mech. Pain? Raoul couldn’t even think, the very air was made of *this* -- but if Shiny was hurting Tracks....

The burst of energy, or whatever it was, fell away, leaving sweetness in its wake. Tracks blew out a heated vent, shuddering. A pale golden aura clung to him, and when he opened his eyes the glow was there too, white, pure and dancing. 

Tracks smiled down at him, that full-frame smile of body language and posture. 

He looked... holy. Like that hombre being lifted up to heaven in a whirlwind and chariot -- the one in the stained glass at the old parish church. Or expressions on the kitschy pictures of saints his mama plastered all over the house, but without being tacky. Like 'holy' was something you could touch and taste and smell. It should have been too much, too weird and alien. 

Raoul needed to be fucked so bad. “Oh God,” he breathed.

Behind him, Shiny purred. That flippant Pope comparison seemed now so wrong, so small. Unless there was a whole fragging lot about the Pope he didn’t know. 

“Tracks--” Raoul started, fighting just to keep from shucking out of his utility belt and clothing, right then and there.

“I’m still here,” said the blue mech, his voice a multi-tonal croon through which Raoul could hear Shiny, could hear the Prime like somehow the two were all wrapped up together, stuffed into the same body, the sum greater than the parts. “Do you still wish to demonstrate your skill?”

 

\------

Tracks had imagined what communion with his Prime would be like. What mech, aware of the sheer power of their living world, hadn’t felt the pulsing, blossoming *need* at the center of himself to know more, to truly understand where he had come from, to experience ecstatic union? The most poetic of the holy texts spoke of mecha being touched by the Prime, of being linked spark to spark via their protometal socket. Popular nano-credit romances and holovid dramas spun grandiose tales of the various Lord High Protectors, believed to have thirteen sockets, a perfect match for their Prime's thirteen cables. 

Intellectually, Tracks knew that it would be a link like no other, connector cillae plunging through his metal until the socket guided them right down to his spark chamber, took them inside. He knew that feeling another processor against his spark would be unparalleled intimacy. He’d imagined, from the texts and stories, how it might feel.

Tracks had never, could never have, imagined *this.*

It felt as if he had spent the entirety of his existence in recharge, in stasis. It was an awakening, coming alive; it was the voice that had called him into being, the voice that called him Home.

Every part of him was full, was replete. And every part of him was laid bare -- and treasured. The immensity, the sheer vastness... it was only now, as an extension to Prime’s consciousness, that he *understood*. Behind the numinous and patient presence of Prime licking through his circuits, there was so much more. Just as Tracks’s chassis was a doorway, a means for Prime to experience the world, so too Prime himself was a conduit, pure and perfect. 

Beyond... was light, the discarnate dance of sparks, an enfolding and transcendent awareness. It was more than Tracks could conceptualize, an abiding presence without beginning or end, too great to grasp save in starts and flickers.

But in those flickers, Tracks perceived what they all truly were. They were Cybertron. One spark that was also many, a multitudinous unity in a way that he could not process, but knew to be true nonetheless. 

That oneness directed its attention toward him in a sunrise of curiosity. And it saw as Tracks saw -- came to know this tiny, alien, ephemeral organic that had turned Tracks's functioning upside down and sideways in a flicker of time. Twinned and twined in his Prime’s fathomless, patient curiosity, Tracks shared gladly all the ways this creature baffled, amused, enraged, and charmed him. Prime saw even those things which Tracks did not share with Blaster -- the depth of his concealed affection, and how moved Tracks was by the strength of will so at odds with Raoul's size and processing abilities. 

An interface toy, a detailing tool -- an expensive necessity for the shop Tracks had been determined to create -- had become something for which Tracks had no name. A... partner, vastly unequal to a mech yet demanding equality. A paradox, all strength and softness, fiery resilience and watery substance. 

All this passed between them in an instant. Tracks unshuttered his optics, and regarded his infuriating-beguiling, ephemeral organic, who stared back at him... back at their intertwined selves with equal parts concern, bravado, and naked desire. 

"Tracks--" Raoul said, for once at a loss for words.

"I'm still here," they answered in combined harmonics. The enormity of Prime's full attention was devoted to this moment, no matter that he had a galaxy or more of concerns. Tracks should have been worried, should have feared the outcome of such powerful attention on Raoul and all they had achieved. But enmeshed with his Prime in this way, he was stripped of all but his pride in those very achievements and deep affection for the being who had made them possible. "Do you still wish to demonstrate your skill?"

 

\-----

 

Raoul nodded emphatically, looking from Tracks to Prime and shivering from the throbbing waves that pulsed all along his skin. The arousal went all the way through him, touching something at the heart of him that was beyond physical, somewhere at the core of him. “I --” he cleared his throat, suddenly hoarse. “I do you, and he can feel what it’s like?”

“Yes.” 

He shivered, then took a deep breath that sucked the charged air deeper into his lungs, making his cock twitch and his ass clench. “Your wrist, then,” he managed with barely a tremble in his voice. If this was their chance to impress the Prime, then it was worth doing it *right*.

Wordlessly, Tracks offered his arm, and Raoul slid his fingers over the hot metal.

Familiar as he was with Tracks’ construction, he knew where exactly to dig in his fingers to hit especially sensitive spots. Transformation seams -- the small ones that were responsible for the tiny detail stuff, not the large origami folding ones -- were stacked on top of each other, some deeper ones running in completely different directions than the surface ones. Where two or more crossed each other, that was always a good bet. To knead, to stroke... and to lick. Water and electricity in just the right places could drive mechs wild.

And humans, too. Raoul gasped a heated breath. The static that hummed beneath Tracks’s plating tasted hot, an indescribable electric flavor that crackled in his mouth and made his his skin feel too tight, too sensitive. His body knew this, wanted it.

Slowly, he worked his way closer to the big mech’s interface cover. Tracks laid his hand on the detailing table, palm up. Raoul licked his lips, snagged the bottle of water from his belt and then unstrapped the length of metalmesh, shucking his coveralls for good measure. It was way too hot to be in anything, with all the heated air venting off of Tracks and Shiny, and Tracks’s plating was hotter still as Raoul swung himself up to straddle the mech’s wrist. The move brought the engraved underside of Tracks’s lower arm into easy reach. Raoul took a sip of his water to get his tongue good and wet, then found the subtle markings of Tracks’s interface jack cover. And put his mouth there, teasing, digging in with fingers and tongue. 

Latent charge crawled over him. The room seemed to lurch whenever he looked up, and everything seemed so bright, still rimmed with static halos. He could feel the hair on his head standing on end, the rest of his now-empty follicles erect with goosebumps. It took all his willpower not to just grind himself against the textured plating of Tracks’s palm. 

Hot air shuddered over his back, Tracks’s ventilations sounding like gasps. “Yeah, give it to me,” Raoul murmured, swiping moisture over the smooth metal, and then dragging his teeth across the invisible iris. Tracks groaned aloud, and the panel opened in that kaleidoscopic way, every part folding itself, slotting precisely away, opening to reveal the head of the mech’s cable jack. 

The rings of blue cable-lights here already glowed brightly, pulsing with arousal.

Raoul glanced over at Shiny as he reached out to smooth his hands over the tip of the plug. The Prime’s optics were only dimly lit, but Raoul could hear a larger set of fans kicking in, the smooth sound of vents opening wider. Tracks's eyes -- still glowing with that indefinable sense of *presence* -- focussed in on him intently, their tiny parts constantly whirring. He could feel as much as see Shiny staring back at him, right through Tracks’ eyes. 

Raoul just couldn't help the cocky little grin that snuck onto his face. Gaze fixed on Tracks, he put his lips to that glowing plug, placing a deceptively chaste kiss on the tip, like he used to kiss a chica's hand. He flicked his tongue against one of the glowing blue circles, and hummed in satisfaction as a hot gust of air stirred across his skin.

With all the skills he'd honed in the shop, Raoul teased the plug from its complex housing, stroking and gripping where the armor was softest, sucking and slurping it obscenely into his mouth as it emerged. Raoul paused only to sip from the flask of water, lapping moisture across all the right places. The sweet tingles that ran up his arms and along his tongue told him exactly where to direct his attention, and soon the entire plug was free, the cable unspooling behind it. Raoul took as much as he could in deep, lips stretched tight around the heavy girth, as another concentric ring pressed inside and then another, relaxing his throat just right to swallow the narrower tip. 

Then another wave of those fields hit him. It might as well have been a tsunami the way he buckled under its force. All he wanted was to get that plug inside, as deep as it would go.

Raoul shuddered, pulling his mouth off and gasping a deep breath. He squeezed the cable jack, kneading the metal tight in his hands in an effort to gain back his control. Pretty sure it was a lost cause by now -- and when Tracks brought his free hand up to stroke his back with trembling fingers, Raoul knew for sure.

“Oh God,” Raoul gasped, hips rocking back into that touch, cock jerking as charge just rolled him under. “I need -- gimme--” But Tracks knew what he needed, and hooked the belt Raoul had discarded earlier with the tip of a finger, brought it to him. Raoul scrambled to open one of the little canisters, thin wax spilling over his hand. Sealing his lips around the tip of the knobbed rod, Raoul scooped the lubricant over the shaft, scraping with nails and teeth as he stroked. 

Trembling, Tracks laid the belt aside, fingertips returning to stroke and caress from the nape of Raoul’s neck down his back, lingering at slim hip, the curve of his ass, his shaking thighs. Raoul groaned, hummed around the girth of the plug. The current flowing over him, through him, was intense as a massage, made his muscles twitch and his cock jerk and bob. Gasping, he rocked forward, drew his feet up into the cup of Tracks’s palm. The flow of the fields around him was even stronger like this, made it feel like his body was dusted with cocaine, every breath a spreading arousal -- so deeply peaceful, sweet beyond bearing -- through his every nerve, every cell of him. Felt so good, so connected, like there were other people inside his skin, other awarenesses curious and pleasured.... 

Distantly, Raoul became aware that he was babbling, gasping words between each lick and suck on the tip of the plug. “Please, please,Tracks -- need it, oh, give it to me, yeah--” He whimpered with loss, tried to resist as Tracks took the plug carefully away from him, leaving him adrift in a sea of pure sensation. Gasping, he clung to a groove of Tracks’s forearm, trying to find purchase, something to hold onto. And then the slick tip of the plug slid over his lower back, moved down, and Raoul writhed for it and tried to push himself back, pleading for it, pure abandon.

 

\------

 

Conjoined, unified by this unparalleled connection, two sparks coiled together within the experiences of a single frame. They inhabited every circuit, every sensor bed, every sight and touch and slick wet glide. Raoul’s skin was silken under their fingertips, softer than the protometal of a hatchling, wonderfully novel, new. 

Liquid waves of pleasure roiled up with every hard squeeze, every brush of teeth or lap of delicate tongue. The human’s tiny fingers, so cleverly suited to detailing work, were all the better at this, stimulating each embedded sensor and applying perfectly calibrated pressure to crossed and layered seams in a manner no mech could replicate. There was no electrical input -- couldn’t be, with an organic -- but the physical stimulation alone was impossibly pleasurable, a delightfully complex variant of such a simple theme.

And then the little human added a new note. 

Both frames vented hard as Raoul reached to caress two sensors and then licked between them, spilling charge between the subcomponents, igniting a crackling discharge, blossom after blossom of pure white pleasure. And that was only the beginning. 

Again and again, Raoul introduced feedback across the hardline, looping the electrical signals of Tracks’s own frame in ways both inventive and so very effective. Encasing half the length of the plug in hot, wet mouth, the little human pressed two wetted fingertips to different concentric lightrings. The crackle of feedback swept both frames, jolted through them, down to the very spark.

But all too soon, Raoul’s concentration fragmented, his body broadcasting its need. Reluctantly, they drew the interface connector from between Raoul’s trembling hands, moisture and wax prickling unexpected fire across the component. “Easy,” they murmured, stroking Raoul’s back with two fingers where he writhed in their palm. 

 

\-------

 

The Prime’s arousal filled the room with white fire. 

A Prime’s pleasure was a potent force, could stir a drone or melt inanimate metal -- and *this* Prime’s arousal... compelled Megatron like no other. 

// _Would you like to share what it feels like, my Lord High Protector?_ // Prime murmured across their bond, with a possessive emphasis on Megatron’s function that plucked at the spark. It was home, and function, everything he kept safe. 

Transcendent resonances sparked over his surface, sieving through the very substance of him, caressing sensor beds tuned to detect the most minute changes in the chaos of battle. Optimus knew him far too well.

Megatron studied the organic. The thing had finished enthusiastically distributing its... oral lubricant on the mechanic’s wrist plug. Its tiny digits found and excited sensor nodes with great accuracy. That, Megatron could understand -- though it was uncommon for Optimus to be this charged simply from the feedback of mere connector fondling. 

The warlord flicked a dismissive shoulder plate, ignoring the way the movement opened him to the wash of the Prime’s pleasure. // _I have no interest in fragging organics,_ // he growled, watching as the human, too, succumbed to the intensity of Prime’s fields. The creature was venting heavily. It leaked all over its body, and its pheromones filled the room even as the mechanic guided his connector down to its secondary orifice.

The Towers could call themselves lucky that Prime tried *everything* once. Megatron himself would have just ordered a collective reprogramming of all those deviants who thought interfacing with non-sentients was an acceptable practice.

A coy tendril wove itself over their bond. // _Perhaps you would like to experience what can be sent over comm, rather than one of my cables._ //

// _I know your ways, Prime. You will manage to pare the data feed down to what *you* consider essential._ // And with the bandwidth at Optimus’s disposal... // _How is that different from plugging into it myself? Do not think to draw me into another of your half-clocked schemes._ // His jaws tightened in the shadow of a scowl, but the expression was next to impossible when Prime’s fields shared his genuine arousal so freely. 

Prime only chirred at him, the Presence of ages behind his gentle amusement. // _If I did not offer, you would complain of being left out, brother. And I think you will not want to miss this._ //

Megatron studied the scene before him, dentae grating as another swell washed over him, as sweet as when his Prime writhed beneath him in supplication, stroking him exactly where he was most sensitive. Megatron checked the perimeter, locked down his leg component tensors, and pinged the guards. // _Very well,_ // he allowed at last. // _But you owe me a sparring match, later this orn,_ // and he accepted the waiting sensory input. 

 

\--------

 

Tracks never tired of what came next, but this time, it was truly novel once again as Prime wore his frame and freely shared the experience thus entwined. They curved their fingers carefully around Raoul’s hips and legs, holding him steady in one hand as he tried to push his hips back. The human cried out as another transcendent pulse flickered through the room, a tidal pull that tugged spinning sparks into greater concordance. “Y-yes, please--” Raoul gasped, and they pressed the tip of the hardline jack to his little port.

The cable was a tiny component, but compared with the human’s body it seemed suddenly huge, its base as thick as Raoul’s wrist, tapering to the tip. At first, it felt as if there was surely no opening at all, certainly not one capable of admitting the girth of the plug. The tip registered pressure, heat, then slid a slick fraction as a ring irised open for the metal, a flexing, squeezing *tightness*. 

They groaned at the rippling feedback, so stunningly tactile and physical without an accompanying link. The sheer vulnerability of Raoul's soft form, just opening for them and taking them, was intoxicating. 

That vulnerability was not alien to the Prime, Tracks realized as Optimus shared with him the strange parallels. The complete access the protoform socket allowed, cilia penetrating the very casing of his spark, rendered Tracks even more vulnerable than the fragile organic. Prime could so easily overwhelm, could take complete control or reprogram or even extinguish Tracks. Optimus was sheer power unlike any other.

Power leashed by.... no, not leashed -- wrapped in compassion.

And more than compassion. The Prime relished the pleasure he could give. And Tracks knew, with himself so fully opened before Optimus, that this, too, was a great part of Raoul's appeal. Certainly the feedback was novel. The vulnerability and fragility intoxicating. The overload spectacular. But it was *this*, seeing Raoul lose control, writhing and begging to be penetrated, taken, pleading for a datapacket, that really sent the surge through Track's circuits. 

Gradually, they pressed more of their length inside, and felt themselves folded into a grip as silken as the protometal socket in Track's chest. Raoul jerked, cried out at the penetration -- “more, o-oh! God, yes!” And they gave him more, pushing the first concentric ring through the resistance. Raoul spasmed, thrashing against the fingers that implacably held him, and they paused, monitoring carefully in concern. 

Tracks had Raoul's tolerances and desires perfectly mapped, knew just the degree of pain that heightened his human's pleasure. Optimus, however, insisted on far greater care. It was a different kind of agony, this excruciatingly tender and slow violation, and Raoul's responses only ignited them more. 

“F-fraggers! Let me-- give me--” Raoul tried to reach back to the place of penetration, fingertips clutching at the plating of Tracks’s fingers. “S-stop it with the ah! Hurry up and fuck me, already!”

Their amusement rippled between them, and they stroked him and tightened their grip. Raoul’s body was tighter with every ring they gradually worked inside, compressing across sensors and protometal in delicious ripples. And Optimus insisted on moving ever more slowly, going so far as to transfix the human’s hips with a digit so that the little creature might not injure himself with his increasingly desperate thrashing.

By the time the last sensor ring eased inside the rippling tightness of Raoul’s body, the human wasn’t the only one incoherent from pleasure. The part of them that was still Tracks wondered how he managed to hold his hand so steady with the barrage of delirious sensations -- moisture, heat, pressure, tiny microdischarges that flickered along Raoul’s flesh and fed back into Tracks’ plating.

The Prime’s attention, guided through Tracks’s metal, settled on the tingling field that was starting to bloom across Raoul’s skin. The human’s field effect, normally only present those short moments before overload, folded out now in a more sustained manner, a gradually brightening tungsten glow instead of an all-consuming magnesium burn. Awe and wonder flavored the pleasure now -- how an organic could create such fields, when it had only the most rudimentary cation-anion transportation lines for an electrical system?

Raoul, gasping, seemed to enjoy the unusual sensation as much as they. He weakly pushed against the digit that prevented him from moving, from reaching his most sensitive places. His hips bucked hard into Tracks’s palm. The human’s reproductive data-nozzle wept transfer fluid and they briefly scanned the human to make certain he was still in good health -- even that simple sensor pass set off a slow cascade of feedback, unlike any Tracks had experienced before. 

Like an oscillating circuit, charge flickered back and forth between all three of them, resonating, inducing pleasure with every crest. It was -- it was akin to a human’s response to data packages sent via the plug, though they hadn’t yet transmitted any. Tracks hadn’t known that Raoul was capable of producing those electromagnetics all on his own. But maybe it was the Lord Prime’s fields that made the difference, that coaxed such ecstasy not only from Cybertronians but humans, too. 

The sensor stone was nearly white with the ever-tightening spiral of charge.

“Please, please, please,” Raoul sobbed, begging -- the part of them that was Tracks knew just how far gone the human surely was to resort to such measures -- and Raoul tried his best to gather friction from the thumb holding him down.

"If you insist." The voice that emerged from them was all Optimus, resonant with deeply benevolent satisfaction, pausing just a nano more to regard Raoul. The datapacket they wove was interlaced with Tracks's knowledge of the human and something that was completely Prime, coding that Tracks could not even begin to comprehend or map but that sang with a symphonic harmony, wholeness... blissful wellbeing. That code sizzled along Tracks’s conduits, licked through his circuits, took up residence within his very spark.

And then the electrical input hit Raoul, and the strangely alien field he wore. 

A cascade of glittering electromagnetism washed the human, and the input shattered, rebounded to them magnified a hundred times, brilliantly modulated, igniting sensation so intense it locked joints and froze capacitors. Raoul screamed, hips bucking bucking once and then again, port clenching deliciously around the cable jack. Physical frames unable to support such charge as this, Raoul cupped carefully in locked and grounded hand, first Tracks and then Prime tipped into overload. 

\-------

 

His Prime’s delight filled Tracks with a golden haze as they both came back online. Some of Tracks’s peripheral circuits still smoked a little. A momentary shadow flickered over that encompassing aura, and they stroked Raoul lightly until he stirred in their palm, grinning up. “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about,” said Raoul, thick-tongued, hand going lazily to stroke the thumb-thick cable that draped across his hip and thigh. He teased at the length of wiring with nails and fingerpads, unusual little bursts of sensation darting across already-sensitized hardware. “Got any more where that came from?”

As it turned out, they did.

\--------

 

Raoul was in a fuzzy, post-plugging haze, and hardly noticed as Tracks collected him, bowing numerous times. "Jesus fucking Christ, Tracks, quit bowing. You look like a fucking pendejo." Editing his thoughts? Not even an option after that. Holy fuck. 

Literally.

Tracks backed away as Shiny unfolded himself from the reclining chair-thing, Overkill approaching to offer a steadying hand. Apparently Raoul was not the only one who was fuzzy.

"Will that be all, my Lord Prime?" a voice said from somewhere... near the chair? Was there some sort of mini-munchkin underneath it? 

"Indeed, Recline. Thank you for attending this audience on your off cycle. I look forward to your impressions of the joor at our next session." 

"It was a pleasure, and fascinating, my Prime," the voice responded.

Then the dentist table-chair-thing shifted in a million fucking directions and reassembled into a tall, weird-ass silver mech. Raoul had the impression of tiny, petal-thin armor plates etched with patterns similar to those Tentacles painted on him from time to time. He was just as heavily built as any mech, but... softer, somehow rounded, curved where he should be sharp. Moving with liquid grace, as though he had gel rather than wiring and cables beneath, the mech bowed before both Shiny, who gave him an affectionate squeeze on his shoulder, and Overkill, who returned a curt nod. The rounded mech gave Raoul one of those brilliant mech-smiles -- as much armor and frame-language as mouth -- and then departed as well, graciously gesturing Tracks out first.

Raoul gaped. "Did all those fields fuck up my head or something, or did I really just see what I think I saw? Hijo de puta, next thing the manicure table is gonna get up and walk out, too."

\-----------

Raoul woke up and squirmed, stretching away that distinctly achy, stiff feel he always had when he slept on a mech rather than metalmesh or something softer. He couldn't remember the shuttle arriving in Kalis, but could hear the distinctly familiar sounds that told him they were home. The shop. Whatever. He opened an eye and saw blue.

"Jesus fuck, are you snuggling me?"

The pendejo even had one of his hands cupped over him. 

"Raoul," Tracks responded softly.

"Ese es mi nombre, don’t wear it out."

"Raoul... just... be quiet. If you can. For one minute."

Raoul propped his chin up. "Whatever. You gonna get all prissy with me for bein' myself in front of your fucking pope, you can just stop right now. Things went great. You gotta trust me. Haven't you figured that out by now?"

"Raoul... stop. It could have gone phenomenally bad, for both of us. But it didn't. It was... never in all of my megavorns did I ever believe I would have an opportunity to..."

"Fuck your shiny pope?"

Tracks vented. "Will you please just let me speak. Mecha would willingly deactivate, give their very sparks, just for the chance to commune with the Prime in such a way. We are all built to do so... but..."

Raoul couldn’t help his smile. "Hey, no worries. I get it. I really do. It was pretty fucking amazing for me, too." He wondered how many times he’d actually blacked out. Two, that he could count, at least. And he still felt so... good. Odd, somehow, but good, like his body had been made less weighty, his mind lighter. It was an impossible sensation to name, exactly, but it definitely felt nice. He’d never had the effects of servicing a mech linger like this before.

"Thank you, Raoul. You are somehow charmed. Ever since I acquired... since you came into my functioning, despite the many ways you make me feel completely glitched, I have been blessed. I do not thank you often enough."

Or ever, Raoul thought, blinking away sudden, very un-macho moisture. Oh, he knew well enough what Tracks meant, every time the puto brought back some poor new human or a potted blueberry bush or something, but it was fragging nice to hear it all the same. 

"Hey, don’t get sappy on me. We're partners, right? You grease my engine, I grease yours. I got your back, hombre." 

"And I have yours. I... will feel your absence when you have saved enough to return to Earth. Which will likely happen soon indeed, considering the clients we will gain when word slips out that you serviced the Prime."

Raoul gave a smug grin. He knew just whose tentacles were gonna leak that news.

"We're gonna need a bigger shop. Maybe you should buy that shrink's office that's above us. And more staff. And I want a bigger cut. I'm not just tower-quality any more."

Tracks vented, but did not disagree.

 

\----------

 

Ratchet checked the id tag on the incoming comm, and then checked it again. Of all the audacious, presumptuous...

He almost dismissed the call. But, then again, what sort of medic would he be, if he didn't check on a patient's post-op status? He considered transferring the call to First Aid... but then, the young medic was likely rather busy getting ready for his transfer. 

"What?" he demanded, putting the image on viewer. "Are you malfunctioning?"

"No," Chip replied brightly. The little organic was standing. Using a short length of aluminum as a cane, he took a few stiff, carefully balanced steps forward on the desk where he was perched.

"Then why are you contacting me? I did not give Thundercracker my frequency in order to chat," _With his nuisance of a pet_ , Ratchet almost added, but managed to restrain his vocalizer. 

"I --I know. And Thundercracker knows. But... look. Please don't send First Aid away. I don't know if you understand just how much a difference he's making, how many of us he's saved from being 'disposed of' or disfigured. Not to mention how many he saved by figuring out the withdrawal illness."

Withdrawal illness? Ratchet dismissed the flash of interest with a scowl and returned to the matter at hand. 

"First Aid is a medic of the highest calibre, Chip, crafted by a preeminent creator mech. He is not a xenoveterinarian, and his concern should be with his function." Vector Sigma, why was he trying to justify anything to the creature? 

"I think First Aid is a healer," the tiny creature countered, hand on his hip, his posture eerily similar to that of a mech giving an underling a dressing down. "He can't help caring for those who are most damaged. Isn't that a part of what makes him a high caliber medic, just as much as his hands and coding? 'A great medic is a product of the spark principally; code sources and new technology, while of great utility, do not make a medic.'" 

Quoting Ratchet's own words from the _A Treatise Against the Mass Production and Commodification of Medics and for the Expansion of Funding for Specialized Creator Mecha_. Cheeky. "Who translated that for you?" Ratchet snapped.

"No one. I translated it myself. I'm only about ten-thousand glyphs in, but it's an intriguing read."

"Well, your translation is ludicrously inexact."

"I'm still getting the hang of the primary modifiers, and haven't even started on the secondary or tertiary set," Chip allowed, giving another one of his bright smiles. "My eyes don't pick up the infrared or ultraviolet spectra, so I'm writing a filtering program to allow me see those subglyphs."

"I'm sure it would be easy enough for Thundercracker to set up a..."

"Yes, yes it would, but then I wouldn't learn how to do it, would I?"

Ratchet glowered. “Going about things the hard way, human, isn’t an efficient use of your resources.” Or time. The humans hardly had a vorn apiece.

“Well now,” Chip smiled, straightened, using his cane for stability. “Maybe not, but that’s the way you did things, from what I hear of your past. The hard way, I mean.”

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ratchet snapped.

"Just that I don't understand why someone who went through the hard work of a full-frame reformat from politician to medic, who spent megavorns trying to heal the very mecha who suffered under the Senate's neglect, and against all odds was elevated to the head of your guild and made medic to the Prime, would now want to prevent your student from making similar choices, to follow the promptings of his own spark." 

"Hmph."

Rewind and his fragging unauthorized biography again. The last thing Ratchet had ever wanted was to become the poster mech for cross-function reformats. Of course the fragging Prime and Protector were endlessly amused by it, slag them both sideways. Prime didn't even *try* to get Soundwave to suppress it when the biography first surfaced. ‘Freedom of information’ and mecha needing ‘inspiring role models’ and some such slag.

Speaking of the dynamic duo, perhaps he should set Chip's concerns to rest. If Chip wanted to waste his pathetically short existence translating texts and pestering medics, that was his business, but *Ratchet* was not going to enable such inefficiency. 

"You don't need to worry about First Aid. His transfer will probably do more to help your backwater planet than his efforts to run some sort of animal rescue on his off cycles."

Ratchet felt a sliver of satisfaction as the creature was rendered momentarily speechless. The lack of bleating was almost peaceful.

"I don't understand," Chip finally chirped, his little wet optics blinking. 

"No, of course you don't. First Aid is being transferred to Earth. It's a much better residency for him, anyhow." The Prime and Protector wanted a medic with ‘cross-cultural sensitivity’ on the deployment, and thanks to that prying, no-good, spawn of a radio drone Soundwave, they knew all about First Aid and his soft sparked rescue project, frag it. Ratchet knew better than to try to argue that fragging duo out of anything when they were united on an issue. 

It didn’t help, of course, that Ratchet had mentioned the possible legal violations to Optimus in the first place, and how he had found out about those violations. Soft spark of a Prime had been so proud of First Aid...

"Now," Ratchet said, quite satisfied with the stunned look on the creature's little face. "Let's use this call productively. I have a breem. Tell me about this ‘withdrawal illness.’" Slagging xenovets were next to useless, anyhow. And who knew what interesting new phenomena First Aid had discovered?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Furniture that gets up and walks away? It isn't such an odd idea.
> 
>    
> [Recline in a different AU?](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5bv70WFtz1qm18qco2_500.gif)  
> (ETA link fixed)  
> [The Decepticon Version](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5bv70WFtz1qm18qco1_500.gif)
> 
>  

**Author's Note:**

> Your clicks, comments, and kudos continue to totally inspire us! We are having so much fun working on this crazy AU, and are just thrilled it is enjoyable to others as well. Thank you so much to everyone who reads, and especially those who encourage us by letting us know. We are totally open to your ideas and questions, so please don't hesitate to share.


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